11 Steps to Create Sales Battlecards that Win More Deals

by Iain Swanston

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How to Sell on LinkedIn without being Spammy

by Iain Swanston

Discover the latest in Social Selling on LinkedIn with our Lead Generation training.

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…

How to Sell on LinkedIn – the short answer

Follow LinkedIn’s four recommendations listed in the Social Selling Index which are:

Create a professional personal and company brand.
Find and save the profiles of the right people so LinkedIn can push updates to you.
Start engaging with insightful content that generates likes, comments and shares.
Continuing to build relationships via connecting in a value led approach.
Lastly from Klozers – stop trying to sell to people. The more you try and sell the more you will put people off.

Here’s a more detailed guide on How to Sell On LinkedIn

1. Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

The genesis of LinkedIn in 2002 was as a recruiting platform that enabled job seekers to be found by recruiters and the reverse, in that job seekers could quickly find new opportunities.

The platform has moved on since then and is the largest B2B Directory with over 722 million users listed. The sheer volume of contacts has made LinkedIn the place to be for B2B salespeople who are researching and connecting to decision makers throughout the sales process.

The size of the opportunity is equalled only by the size of the potential to ruin both your personal and company brand on the platform.

LinkedIn has a certain etiquette and when you break the “rules” your personal brand is damaged. For example, if the percentage of your connection requests are refused then your prospect can block you for life – not just for the time you are in your current job role, every future job role. Life means life on LinkedIn.

The advent of lockdowns where Field Sales people where suddenly forced to do everything online without any strategy, planning or training, resulted in a massive increase in LinkedIn Spam which made connecting and selling on the platform more difficult than ever.

LinkedIn is without a doubt the best platform for generating new B2B sales leads and a must have as part of your social selling strategy.

2. Your Company Brand on LinkedIn

Outbound done badly damages your brand and this is so true on LinkedIn. The use of automations, spam, connect and pitch messaging and even fake profiles does nothing to enhance your brand.

To compound this problem many people turned to “LinkedIn Lead Generation Experts” who would take control of your profile and spam everyone on the planet with some form of “buy now” message.

Yes these people generate leads, however, this is a scorched earth strategy and the damage will be found by the profile owner for years to come.

Your Personal and Business brand is what attracts and retains customers. Cherish, nurture and develop them all you can.

3. Don’t be spammy

Everyone knows selling has changed, however, it’s worth reminding people as not everyone has got the message. People do not want to be sold to, but they do like to buy. The role of sales is no longer to sell, but to facilitate the right conditions for buyers to buy.

How do you do this:

Provide value up front
Provide insight up front
Focus on building relationships
Provide every single piece of information the prospect wants, including the information that they don’t know that they want, up front.

When you get this right, there is no need to “sell”. It’s actually so much easier.

4. How to Optimise your LinkedIn profile

Let’s start at the very beginning, your LinkedIn Profile. In order to put your best personal brand forward LinkedIn rewards those with the most complete profiles.

By reward I mean they will push you and your content to other users more actively based on the completeness of your profile.

With that in mind it’s important to complete as much information as possible on your profile, whilst paying particular attention to starting from the very top:

Your LinkedIn URL. Be sure to “claim” your name and once you have done this add your primary keyword to the title as shown in the image – I have added the keyword “sales trainer”.
Include a professionally designed banner that conveys your brand promise. This should be congruent with your company website.
Use a business like, professional portrait image – not an image of you sipping cocktails. LinkedIn is B2B and you need to play to that audience.

Use keywords that your target audience would use to search for you in your title. Many LinkedIn trainers will recommend a title targeting a specific audience and including the outcome that you provide. I can tell you that I and many others immediately decline connection requests from these people as they have just told you in advance “I am coming to get you”. Remember nobody wants to be sold to.
Include relevant hashtags for your industry. This needs to be done via the Creator Mode feature.
Be sure to complete the “Providing Services” section with three services that you would like to promote. Where possible these should match your hashtags

Next up is the “Featured” section. This is an opportunity for you to showcase your subject matter expertise. White Papers, Books, Articles and Posts that position you as the expert. Where possible include lead magnets from your website to attract new prospects.
About is the next section you should customise. This should be about who you work with, the services you provide and the results you deliver. Lastly include a call to action, keywords from your Skills section (more on this to follow), hashtags and contact details.

The next two sections are Experience & Education, and these should be as detailed and truthful as possible. Whether you are selling a product or service or yourself in an interview, company’s will look to verify this information and you will quickly be found out if you are not telling the truth.
Licenses and Certification is the next section and here you should take the opportunity to reinforce your brand. This is arguably easier for us as a training provider, however, you can include vocational training and anything that puts you forward as a thought leader. If you are not continually educating yourself and keeping up to date you should be.

Skills & Endorsements is the nest section and this is really important. The LinkedIn search algorithm is more likely to recommend you for a skill if you have been endorsed for that skill, which makes sense. Therefore, you should ensure that the skills you would like to be known for are at the top to encourage people to endorse you for these skills.

As you can see from my profile I have 99+ endorsements for a few skills but not for the core skills “sales”, “sales coaching” and “sales trainings”. My fault as I was not aware of the importance of this until recently.
What’s also strange is that LinkedIn has not listing for “Sales Training” only “Sales Trainings”. This may be a language/translation issue, however, as the Skills are predefined there is no way to change this.

Lastly, the Accomplishments section is a great place to highlight any awards, courses or publications that you are credited with.

That’s it. One important point I should explain. Whist we always advocate a consultative, non salesy approach we are referring to our communication style your personal and company pages should be very salesy. They are akin to a website Landing Page and should do as much as possible to convert the visitor to an enquirer.

5. How to create a LinkedIn Company Page

Like your personal profile page the Company page should be like a Landing page on your website. Content rich and full of information.

Once the page is complete it’s important that you keep the page up to date with new posts in order that anyone visiting the page will not be confronted with an empty page with no activity.

Again it’s important to have your company livery and brand promise front and centre. The about section is an opportunity to tell the world how great your products and services are, who they are for and the results they help your clients achieve.

Don’t forget your call to action button, contact details and hashtags.

6. How to create a LinkedIn Showcase Page

Showcase pages are a great tool for promoting a product or service. Imagine you are Microsoft, your company page would be Microsoft and you could create Showcase pages for Microsoft Dynamics or Microsoft Teams.

We use the Showcase section to promote the events we run on LinkedIn and Funnel Sprint which is our premier lead generation training programme.

Please note: Showcase pages must be created from your Company page using the “Admin Tools” drop down menu.

7. How to create a LinkedIn Showcase Page

LinkedIn articles are a great resource for positioning your personal brand. LinkedIn loves content so they desperately want you to be creating content on a regular basis.

When combined with creating content for our own website this can be really demanding, however, the best strategy is to create full, long form content on your website and then create a short summary piece as a LinkedIn article that links back to your website.

That way you have satiated both the Google and LinkedIn beasts.

As an example this particular blog post How to Sell on LinkedIn was first published on the klozers.com website with a summary article then published on LinkedIn here.

Google does index content published on LinkedIn but so far we have found by far it’s better to use our company blog as the primary content source.

8. How to create a Boolean Search Strings

Boolean search strings are the somewhat complicated looking search terms that allow you to create very specific and highly targeted searches. This targeting is encouraged by LinkedIn and contributes to your Social Selling Index score. Here are the different operators you can use:

Quotes [“”] These are used when you are looking for an exact match. As an example when you type in sales manager to the search bar without the quotes the search returns all the contacts with the word sales and manager in their profile. By adding the quotes and entering “sales manager” the search returns all the contacts with that exact keyword.
Parentheses [()] These searches are used when you want to combine search terms. For example if you wanted to find people who have “VP” in their profiles, but exclude “assistant to VP” or SVPs, type VP NOT (assistant OR SVP).
NOT – when you type NOT in capital leaders this excludes what follows. For example you may search for “sales manager” NOT “sales director” if you wanted to exclude sales directors from the results.
AND – as it sounds when you type in AND in capital letters the search returns results for both keywords. As an example if you type in “sales” AND “marketing” the search would return results that included both words.
OR – OR is the broadest search term and best used when you want to widen the results. The search term “sales” OR “marketing” would cast a wider net and return more results than “sales” AND “marketing”.

9. How to connect on LinkedIn

Building your network is one of the 4 foundations of social selling, however, this has come under more scrutiny recently. LinkedIn would like you to only connect to people you know – but equally they know users are connecting to people they don’t know all the time.

Unfortunately, most people employ a spray and prey approach and connect with anyone and then never speak to them again. Because of this LinkedIn has reduced the number of connection requests to 100 per week to stop this although there are legitimate ways around this via the groups function.

In an attempt to short circuit the connection process many people search for the “best” connection messaging templates on Google.

By the time these templates are on Google they have been used literally millions of times. People buy from people we would encourage you to interact via like, comments and shares before trying to connect.

You can then refer to content or comments they have shared in the connection request and voila – no templates required.

By employing this strategy your acceptance rate will increase from the standard which is around 30 to between 60 and 70%.

HOW TO DOWNLOAD YOUR LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS

LinkedIn allows you to download your connections although it’s worth pointing out that this does not include the users email address or contact details.

The data is nonetheless still helpful for Account Planning and targeting larger enterprise accounts.

10. How to get the most from LinkedIn Messaging

We’ve covered the best approach to messaging with respect to when you are connecting, however, what happens after you have connected. The options here are three fold:

Pitch your product or service. This will work for some people, however, the percentage of times this will work is very low. If you are in a hurry, and don’t care about your personal or business brand, then this is your best option.
Send a thank you for connecting message and never speak to them again like the majority of LinkedIn users
Focus on building a relationship by providing insight and value. This is a longer term approach, however, the results are much improved in comparison to options 1 and 2.

Here are some ideas that you can use to facilitate this approach:

Tell the prospect in the “thank you for connecting message” that you regularly share insight to their job title about xyz and look forward to speaking again.
As discussed in step 1 regularly share insight with the prospect but don’t bombard them.
Message the prospect and ask for help with an industry survey
Create a plan – download our simple spreadsheet so you can plan and track all your interactions on LinkedIn.
Engage – Follow the individual using Sales Navigator and like, comment or share when the prospect posts or comments on the platform.
Provide sales leads to them using our “recommended search” hack

Lastly, you must compress all your messages as no one wants to read a novel in their inbox and wherever possible make the desired response to your message a simple thumbs up emoji. The quicker and easier it is for the prospect to respond the more likely they are to do so.

11. How to Create a LinkedIn Event

LinkedIn Events took off during the lockdown period as millions of users found themselves stuck at home in need or new routes to market and in some cases training.

Whilst the LinkedIn Events platform was primarily designed to host and deliver events on the LinkedIn platform itself many users are hosting Events and using LinkedIn as the main channel to drive registrations.

We’re personally great fans of LinkedIn Events and regularly run workshops on the platform. This has allowed as greater access to our clients and also potential new customers outside our current 1^st degree connections and into 2^nd and third degree contacts across the globe.

Like your company page, its important to brand your events inline with your company branding. Once the event is set up you can easily invite any of your personal connections and you should share the event regularly in your timeline.

In addition to LinkedIn we have a webinar sign up page on our website and use our email list to drive registrations. With what we would describe as limited effort we typically have between 50 and 100 attendees.

The downside of any free online event is there is a huge drop out rate on the day. This is partly due to the fact that the LinkedIn Events function does not add a Calendar Appointment to the users diary when they click yes to attend.

It’s obviously not possible to send a regular diary invite as the users would then have access to the contact details of all the other attendees.

We have managed to create a workaround using Microsoft Live Events, however, it’s still manual and something that we need to work on before we would share this.

12. How to use sell using LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups used to be huge, however, LinkedIn decided to move users away from the groups, and group discussions, leaving many groups almost dormant.

Whereby previously groups where the hotbeds of focussed industry discussions they mostly lie silent and posting into groups can feel like shouting into the unknown.

The plus side is that groups remain an easy route to build connections and gather data. For example, while new connection requests are limited to 100 per week, this can be sidestepped by connecting to users in a common group. LinkedIn may well change this again in the near future.

Users are allowed to be members of up to 50 LinkedIn groups and we recommend joining groups where your Ideal Client Profile can be found.

13. How to get the most from LinkedIn Inmail

LinkedIn Inmail historically had the highest open rates which according to LinkedIn is 57.5% which when compared to standard email which is 21.6% sounds great.

Forgive me though – Inmails are limited to premium accounts (20 Inmails per month) and add-ons that you can be purchased, so without independent verification this may not be the most accurate of data.

What I believe to be true is that the open rates and conversion rates from Inmail has dropped as it has become more widely adopted by sales and marketing team.

For us, the Inmail feature shows no difference in open rates given the strategies that we use, however, when certain prospects are not active on LinkedIn and have locked down their connection settings, Inmail might be the only channel available.

14. Using LinkedIn for Content Marketing

LinkedIn loves content creators and with the new “Creator Mode” available from 2021 they have signalled that this is the direction that they want to take the platform.

For obvious reasons when compared to Facebook, LinkedIn is primarily focussed on B2B, however, the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 drove new users to the platform and encouraged existing users to engage more using content.

The type of content has also changed there are much more personal stories on the platform then previously.

From a sales perspective this makes sense as stories sell. Whilst some people are uncomfortable sharing their story other content types that are popular are:

Industry Insights

Event Information

Customer Focussed

Employee Focussed

Company News

Products and services

Partners & Sponsors Stories sell, so in order to gain engagement and visibility it’s important to develop your content around a story wherever possible.

15. How to sell on LinkedIn using Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is the Premium version of LinkedIn and a must have tool for any modern sales rep. The Navigator platform is extremely powerful and in addition to the increased search filters, the main benefit we would suggest is the ability to follow prospects and target accounts from a central dashboard.

The dashboard provides alerts based on both the prospects and accounts you are following allowing you to identify opportunities to engage at a glance.

Sales Navigator also provides what they call “Smart Links” which gives the user tracking data for any documents they send via Inmail.

The data includes the number of times the link was clicked, how long the user viewed the link, the date and time the link was clicked and the full details of the user who clicked on the link. All of which are important when sending .pdf, ppt or word documents to prospects.

Saved Searches are also an important feature within Sales Navigator. These allow the user to save highly targeted searches and return to them as LinkedIn updates the search results on a daily basis.

The saved search function has many uses such as tracking when connections move companies or when they are promoted to a more senior role.

Back to Table of Contents

16. What is LinkedIn Social Selling Index?

Linkedin developed the Social Selling Index (SSI) to encourage both user adoption and best practice. As mentioned at the start of this document the SSI has four core areas:

1.      Creating your professional personal and company brand
2.      Finding and saving the profiles of the right people so LinkedIn can push updates to you
3.      Engaging prospects with thought leadership and insightful content that generates likes, comments and shares
4.      Continuing to build new relationships via connecting in a value led approach

LinkedIn displays an SSI score for every user and their position or rank compared to their Team. Again, this is to drive user adoption and make the product sticky.

Most users are unaware of the benefits of having a social selling strategy. LinkedIn and Sales Navigator are like Ferraris which mean they need to be driven differently to a supermarket trolley if you want to get the full benefits from them.

Any strategy will take time, however, in the new world of remote selling it’s much more than inside sales and SDR’s who can benefit from the platform.

From our own experience we have developed a social selling strategy that can be replicated across every industry. There is however no magic wand and no substitute for hard work.

The more you put into LinkedIn the more you will get out.

Back to Table of Contents

17. How to sell on LinkedIn using Automation Software

The popularity of the LinkedIn platform has led to the development of a number of Google Chrome browser extensions that automate the process of visiting, connecting and messaging.

Like all tools they are only as good as the individual who is configuring them. In essence the tools are great, however, the widespread use of the tools are what has caused LinkedIn to now limit the amount of connection requests to 100.

Spray and prey, connect and forget and Scorched earth are the negative results caused by the misuse of the tools.

As you would expect LinkedIn discourages users form using any form of automation as they are against the rules.

With that said every one of the automation providers are on LinkedIn and even using LinkedIn events to promote their tools so the cynic in me thinks they are well aware of the problem and turn a blind eye to it because for the time being it suits them.

My understanding is that if you are “caught” using automation you will receive a warning and not immediately blocked from the platform.

I have never received such a warning so I can’t confirm this – only you know your level of risk so I will leave the decision to automate or not up to you.

18. How to sell on LinkedIn – Engagement Pods

A different take on Automation are Engagement Pods. Like other automation tools these are browser bases extensions that allow you to join a pod or group.

The purpose of the pods is to boost the reach of the members content by automating the like and comments on their posts.

The LinkedIn algorithm promotes content to more of your connections based on the engagement withing the first hour of posting.

Whilst you might like the idea of boosting the reach of your content, the problem arises when you suddenly find the automation is commenting on content that does not fit your brand and in some cases, will be damaging your brand.

You have no control over what they post and what comments they attribute to you. Giving control of your LinkedIn account to other pod members is not something we would recommend to anyone.

19. How to sell on LinkedIn – Social Selling Course

Social selling is such an important part of modern B2B selling we have incorporated all our best social selling strategies and tactics into our B2B Lead Generation Course. In addition to live training the course provides practical strategies and tactics that users are encouraged to use immediately.

The course is comprehensive and covers everything from the basics of setting up and optimising your LinkedIn profile to the more advanced lead generation strategies we teach.

As always our sales training is built around the consultative sales methodology so the priority is always the protection of your personal and business brand.

LinkedIn Sales Strategy Consulting

Need more help? Training is great, but strategy is the game changer that can set you apart from your competition.

We provide a full LinkedIn Sales Strategy Consulting for companies who need their team to have a joined up approach.

LinkedIn, Sales Navigator and Social selling are all vital components of any Account Based Marketing campaign which we are happy to advise you on.

Hoe maak je een SaaS-verkoop draaiboek? (met GRATIS sjabloon)

by Iain Swanston

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Sales Training and Consulting for B2B Companies

by Iain Swanston

Why invest in Sales Training and Consulting?

There are normally two reasons companies invest in our Sales Training and Consulting services. Firstly, they are often in a hurry to find sales growth and are looking for a short cut, a growth hack.

Often these companies would eventually find the right strategies and tactics themselves, but they may be keen to capitalise on their first mover advantage or satisfy the needs of external investors.

For these companies we provide a shortcut, we help them avoid the pitfalls and roadblocks that every growing business experiences.

When you engage with Klozers your team has access to over 70 years experience in B2B sales and marketing.

Our sales training can help you get the best out of your team, alongside our consultancy services that will help you deploy the changes identified by our consultancy

Let’s take a closer look at why it makes so much sense to use sales training and consulting services together.

1. Why sales consulting compliments your sales training?

Many companies make the mistake of rushing into training as the solution to improving sales performance.

Indeed, training may be part of the solution, but it is never the whole solution. Before any training takes place it’s important to understand the root causes of the challenges within the sales department and only when we truly understand the problems can we prescribe the best possible solution.

By rushing into training we would be assuming that everything else that affects sales is 100% perfect, and that is simply never the case.

As with anything, the greater the investment upfront in terms of the diagnosis, the more effective the training will be.

This is because the training can then be customised to meet the exact needs of the business which makes it much more impactful.

2. Why is Sales Training so effective?

Sales training builds both skills and confidence, and those are simply unbeatable in front of a customer.

The best salespeople are like athletes and they are hungry to learn more and stay at the top of their game.

The reason they are so good is that they are constantly looking for an edge, an advantage, and this keeps driving them forward.

These are small but important things that make the difference and gets more deals over the line. Our training is designed to keep your team at the top of their game and help them benefit from the very latest insights and industry best practice.

Our sales trainers work hard to keep your team engaged and motivated during training sessions, using a range of mediums to maintain their attention and inspire them.

Your sales trainer will help your team sell more effectively whether that be over the phone, in-person or online.

They can help them improve their lead generation, closing and account management skills, and provide indispensable mentoring services.

3. What happens before training takes place?

Before your training sessions begin, it’s important to identify what you want to get from them. As a sales training provider we offer bespoke services that are based on your specific needs and challenges.

We can provide a full sales consultancy service in advance of any training. This would typically include an evaluation of your current sales unit in relation to sales maturity and best practice.

We can also provide full training needs analysis so you can gain a better understanding of your requirements before staring any training course.

For sales training to be effective, they need to be delivered in a way that maintains your teams’ attention, which means your sessions will include a great deal of interactivity.

Our sales training sessions include a range of demonstrations, exercises, games and roleplay.

4. What is the aim of Sales Training

Our goal as a provider is not to deliver sales training, but to deliver results.

Therefore we believe the goal of Sales training is to help you meet a range of sales goals faster than you would if you were to continue without any intervention.

Not every company’s needs are the same, but businesses often invest in sales training because they want to improve their staff’s sales skills, close more deals, create more conversions, make their staff feel more supported, improve morale and boost the average value of their sales.

However, ultimately all of these lead to one overall benefit – an improvement in results. Some companies invest in training because they have identified a particular problem that needs addressing which is being caused by a skills gaps within their businesses.

Training may also benefit your team if they seem to be lacking direction, or are feeling unmotivated. A lack of motivation can often occur because staff are unclear on what their roles are, or because the current strategies they are using are not working.

In many occasions this is why Sales consultancy is a perfect fit alongside sales training as it can also help you identify and deal with additional challenges.

5. How can a Sales Consultant help our business?

A sales consultant will help your business by taking a close look at your current situation, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and helping you make positive changes to drive revenue growth.

If you are not currently meeting your sales targets, our sales consultants can help you find out why this is happening and develop strategies to address the issues.

Our experienced consultants can help with optimising your sales processes and ensuring you get the maximum conversion ratios from the leads you are generating.

With our years of experience in B2B sales our sales consultants can introduce you to specific resources that will support your business.

These can include lead generation, marketing, sales tracking, and training programmes and software that will give you a better insight into how your sales team are performing.

6. Adding Sales Experience to your Leadership Team

When you are immersed in the day-to-day running of your company, it can be hard to assess your situation objectively.

It’s often impossible to find anyone around you who is not objective as your team all have a role which in some way will make them subjective.

Our sales consultants aren’t just there to identify problems that you weren’t previously aware of, we are completely hands on and happy to work alongside your team to implement any solutions.

Where applicable we will highlight your strengths and help you make the most of the resources that you currently have. In most cases this revolves around the creation of a sales plan, which we work with you to develop and if required are happy to help with executing against the plan.

Our consultants will work with you to help you improve relationships between departments and colleagues. For instance, we are often called upon for detailed advice on aligning sales and marketing departments so you’re delivering coherent messages to your customers.

Indeed aligning sales and marketing is one of our most popular services.

7. Which Companies benefit the most from Consulting Services

We typically have two types of customers of our consulting services. The first are larger organisations who already have a Sales Plan in place.

They need help executing and delivering against the plan as they simply lack the internal resources to do this themselves.

The second group are those looking for external and objective advice. In some cases they have seen a substantial decline in sales recently or aren’t meeting their targets they need to reach and hence are reaching out for support.

These businesses hire us because we have a track record of turning companies around. Alternately you may need external support if you have experienced changes in your industry and you’re struggling to keep up with your competitors.

Companies also may hire us because they feel missed sales targets are starting to affect morale and staff retention rates.

By investing in training and consultancy services, you can show your team you’re determined to improve and start achieving more.

8. Build a Selling System

It’s also common for companies to invest in sales consultancy services because their sales processes are confused and unclear, with team members pulling in different directions.

We are a huge advocate of having a selling system. Finance has a system, operations have a system so why not sales. Building a repeatable scalable selling system is simply a must for any business.

By mapping this out we can help your salespeople to understand how and where they can influence buyers and sell to people on different parts of their journey, helping you secure more sales.

Our consultants can also help you gain a richer understanding of the data available to you, from both your marketing automation and CRM platforms.

In many cases our clients either don’t have enough data or they are overwhelmed by data, and miss out on the most important parts. Either way we can help.

In Conclusion

Sales is an ever changing environment and more and more businesses are improving their performance, staff retention rates and workplace morale.

For most of use this means competition is tough and by investing in our sales training and consultancy services we can give you that edge you need to not just compete, but win.

Sales consultants and trainers can provide invaluable mentorship, help you identify and eradicate weaknesses, and help you make the changes that you need to not only survive but prosper.

Our team can breathe new life into your organisation and inspire people throughout your company. Whether you’ve been missing your targets or are simply ready to build upon recent success and take your business to the next level, there are many great reasons for hiring sales training and consultancy professionals.

If you are ready to hire a sales trainer, sales consultant or both, come and talk with us.

Sales and Service Training Courses

by Iain Swanston

If your business is typical, up to 80% of next years revenues will come from this years customers. Despite this many organisations give little or no thought to customer service, viewing it merely as a cost to the business.

In many cases customer service is a cost to the business, however, survey after survey shows customer service as a core component of your brand. In certain cases some brands who understand the commercial value of great customer service, use it as an opportunity to cross sell and upsell, thus driving additional revenue into the business.

There are so many great statistics for investing in sales and service training once you look into it, it’s difficult to ignore. As an example studies show that 82% of customers leave because of a poor experience and of those 73% leave because of a reaction to rude staff.

Structured and well supported training can help your team meet your customers expectations and even exceed them. The right sales and service training can make your team more adept at winning customers’ trust, whilst boosting your teams confidence.

The best sales and service training programmes are designed to help companies move away from customer service and towards customer experiences.

How can Sales and Service Training help my team?

Often the biggest challenge in business is winning new customers. Given that’s the case it surely makes sense to do everything possible to not only keep those customers, but to maximise the revenue from them.

Most service issues have a simple root problem, for example, 55% of customers are leaving because of delays in resolving a dispute and 51% are leaving because of poor staff training. What’s possibly most important to note, is that all these problems can be easily remedied.

Sales and service training can give your team a system to measure, track and consistently improve your customer service and sales. This will help change the mindset of your team, enabling them to make a real impact by being able to identify what matters most and take action to improve.

When done correctly training can enhance your workplace culture substantially and provide your sales team with additional skills that can benefit them personally throughout their careers.

Why Sales and Service Training is Important — Sales and Service Training

Close More Deals and Learn New Skills

Most companies are unaware of the potential sales opportunities they have with existing customers. With repeat customer spending up to 67% more, sales and service training is more than just handling complaints and returns.

A big part of resolving customers problems should be finding new solutions to the problems customers encounter. In most cases the problems that customers experience are actually the best opportunities for cross selling and upselling.

Training can introduce your team to new strategies and tactics that they may simply never come across before. In addition to external input, there are often great lessons that can be shared internally, and these should be captured and documented for the benefit of others.

Training will help your team become more familiar with your own company’s best practices. In a well structured sales and service training programme, your staff will not only learn new techniques, but also find out why they are so effective and which situations they should be deployed in.

Benefit from External Sales Specialists

Often a key benefit of sales and service training is that it gives your team a chance to take onboard new ideas and strategies from outside the business. In many cases they are more open to learning from external facilitators with an in-depth knowledge than from internal colleagues.

Sales and service specialists can give your team more than just the skills they need to engage potential customers in meaningful conversations. They can help you explain on your customers terms why your products and service may be a good fit for them.

Sales and service training will help your team use the product knowledge and information that they have about your products and services, and turn this into powerful questions that make the buyer want to buy rather than them having to sell to them.

Retain the Best Staff

Many companies are now switched on to the fact that it’s easier to retain quality staff when you invest in training courses for them.

If your team members feel you aren’t investing in them, there’s a high possibility that they will move to a company that will. Investing in training shows your employees that you are eager to help them improve.

When staff receive quality training, they tend to feel more supported, which in turn boosts their confidence. Recruitment costs to replace team members can be incredibly expensive and take up an inordinate amount of management time.

It’s therefore important to try and keep hold of the employees that you have already invested in and continue to develop them.

benefits of sales and service training — Sales and Service Training

Should Managers attend Sales and Service Training?

Sales Managers are responsible for the day to day activities and performance of those activities for members in their team.

Your Managers set the bar in terms of what is acceptable performance and what is not. With this in mind, it’s important that sales managers attend every sales and service training along with their staff so they can hear the information first-hand.

When managers know exactly what’s covered and agreed during training, they can ensure their staff apply this knowledge to real-life scenarios and coach them if they are struggling.

Sales training often includes an element of goal-setting, which is yet another reason why it’s so important for managers to attend. It’s important for the managers to set realistic, yet achievable goals, rather than targets that are out of your team’s reach.

Failure to do this will simply harm the confidence of the team and demotivate them.

Increase your Customer Satisfaction Ratings

Training like everything else in your business needs to deliver a return on your investment. Whilst not everything should be judged by customer service scores, any service training should ultimately improve your customer satisfaction ratings.

Customer expectations are arguably higher than they have ever been and today’s customers expect to receive high-quality service more than ever before.

If they have a bad experience with a member of your team, they’re likely to make their opinions public and Social Media can amplify bad news like never before.

Customer Service training will not only teach your team to deliver the best customer experiences possible, but also turn your happy customers into advocates for your brand, thus generating new business referrals.

Omnichannel Customer Support

Modern customer service training often starts before your customers have even made a purchase. In most cases your customers first interaction with your brand is either your website or social media pages.

It’s important to include these as part of your wider customer experience strategy. This is supported by many statistics for example, using three channels instead of one for marketing campaigns results in a 287% higher purchase rate.

Providing Omnichannel customer support helps your team keep your clients happy across a range of channels and mediums. It can help them communicate with your customers better not only over traditional channels like the phone, but also via live chat, email, social media, SMS and other platforms.

The most successful customer service teams around today adopt an omnichannel approach with research showing that companies with an omnichannel approach experience a 23 fold increase in customer satisfaction.

We believe it’s really important to include these areas in your service programme. Many companies are failing to meet their customers’ expectations which makes it easier for you and your team to stand out from the crowd and win business from them.

Sales and Service Training Course — Sales and Service Training

Build Expert Product Knowledge

No matter the industry customers want to deal with experts and not agents who are simply following a call centre script.

Sales and service training encourages your team to get to know your products inside out so they can answer any and every relevant question they might be faced with.

If sales reps don’t have the knowledge that they require, they are more likely to leave customers feeling frustrated, with the customer going on to air their feedback publicly.

The more your reps know about your products and services, the better they can address customer pain points and explain why your solutions are the answer to their problems.

Enhance Customer Loyalty

Repeated studies show that customers tend to be much more loyal to companies that offer outstanding customer service. Many of today’s customers say that customer service is more important than price when they’re deciding who to do business with.

By investing in sales and service training, you can attract and retain more customers and gain a real edge over your competitors. Part of your overall programme should include how you plan to collect and share customer reviews.

With 70% of people taking action based on customer reviews this is an essential component of every sales and customer service training.

Resolve Disputes Quickly

Delays when resolving complaints can often be the straw that breaks the camels back with 55% of people leaving a brand because of delays in resolution.

Sales and service training can help your reps resolve complaints quickly which is important when dealing with angry and frustrated customers.

Training can help them show tactical empathy when they are dealing with an angry customer and enable them to steer the conversation in the right direction, no matter which medium they are communicating on.

Understanding active listening skills can turn your team into better, more helpful listeners that pay close attention to what your customers have to say and then use the skills and information they have to deliver the best outcome possible.

Why Customers stay after sales and service training — Sales and Service Training

Customer Service Training

Unlike traditional customer service training courses, Klozers provides the latest in business simulation software, that allows your team to experience a 2 year customer experience transformation program in 1 day.

Our state of the art business simulation goes way beyond basic communication skills and helps your sales team understand customer expectations, sales process, and what truly drives sales performance across the organisation.

Designed specifically as a holistic cross departmental our customer service courses are designed to engage everyone from your front line sales team, product and services teams and company management.

The customer service training includes two options as follows:

Enterprise Customer Service Training

SaaS Customer Success Training

Please contact us for further information.

In Summary

How important is retaining your existing customers?

How valuable would the extra revenue be if your customer service team were actively cross selling and upselling throughout their day?

Investing in sales and service training will make your staff and customers much happier. If you look after your staff they will in turn look after your customers.

If you feel you need to make improvements in these areas, please give us a call. We would love to work with you and make the sales and service goals you have in mind a reality.

Sales Coaching – For Individuals and Sales Teams

by Iain Swanston

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…

1. Sales Coaching - Why Invest in Coaching?

At Klozers we love sales coaching. Watching people or a company who had previously struggled, suddenly find their feet and take off, is one of the main benefits of our job.

However, as with anything in business, sales coaching must provide real value and a financial benefit to the business. Unfortunately, many companies still do not invest in professional coaching for their salespeople and the most common reason for this is the cost.

One could argue that if you can’t afford sales coaching then there is an even greater need for it. Perhaps it’s easier for people to blame the cost, than for the coaching profession to admit they could do more to help justify the costs.

We were in that position ourselves until we changed the format of our own sales coaching in order to make it easier for our clients to measure the increases in their pipeline and the subsequent sales revenue that comes from this. If you would like to learn more about this and how you can change your own sales coaching process then you can jump to the end here.

2. Sales Training vs Sales Coaching - what's the difference?

Many people get confused between what is sales training and what is sales coaching. Not only is training and coaching different, they also have different outputs which are really important.

Whereby sales training is about the transfer of knowledge, Sales Coaching is about the practical implementation of that knowledge in the field.

The easiest way to think of this is if your company has technical people like engineers or software developers. The training is what a developer would go through to learn how to write the code.

The coaching is what the developer would need to turn the code into a meaningful application for your business. This means that coaching is the part that drives productivity in the sales team.

One of the main benefits of coaching is that it reinforces the new skills and techniques learnt during the training. Without coaching studies show that up to 98% of knowledge is lost within 30 days.

In other words, one off event-based training sessions have a very limited impact on sales productivity.

3. When to coach and when not to coach

A recent study on Sales Coaching identified it as one of the most productive activities for any sales team, however, not every sales rep is coachable. Some salespeople have a “superiority complex” and don’t believe they can either learn or improve.

This can be falsely reinforced by hitting sales targets that are too low or by being the top sales performer in a group. Other people will not responding to coaching as improving sales invariably means changing sales behaviours and every human being struggles to change their behaviours.

The last reason some salespeople do not respond to coaching is because they are simply stuck in their own comfort zone, and without any really powerful reason to change they simply carry on as before.

The irony is of course that in the majority of cases these people are in the most need of training and coaching. With that said, unless there are exceptional circumstances you should not invest time or money in coaching people who have no desire to improve.

You must either accept them as they are and the potential negative impact they will have on the wider group, or you must have one of those ”management” conversations with them.

Get started with our Sales Performance Coaching

4. Sales Coaching Models

There are many sales coaching models and frameworks that you can choose from. The one we use both internally and externally is the GROW model which we find provides the simplicity and flexibility we require.

It’s worth noting that coaching in sales can be very different to other forms of coaching. For example, in Exec coaching, coaches are encouraged not to provide the answers and to focus on the questions.

This forces the coachee to come up with the answer and the though process is that because its their idea they are more likely to believe it and then act on it.

In sales when there are potentially millions of dollars in terms of deal values up for grabs and time is of the essence, the best sales coaches will switch from a consultative coaching process to directive coaching whereby they are training, coaching and advising the coachee what they need to do.

Opportunities for Coaching

There are many areas within sales that lend themselves to sales coaching. The most common areas Managers should be focussing on for coaching we have found are around:

Sales Activity
Accountability
Lead Generation
Pipeline Coaching
Qualifying/disqualifying

Deal Coaching
Field Coaching
Pre-call planning
Post-call debriefing
Storytelling

5. The Six Biggest Benefits of Sales Coaching

1. Growing Sales Revenues

The more adept your employees become at selling, the more revenue they will generate for your business. We use the word employees because sales has changed and the most productive companies have people in every department that can sell to one degree or another.

For example, many companies who have now aligned their sales and marketing now acknowledge that great salespeople can do marketing and great marketers can sell.

Best in class companies have expanded this to their operations team who are now positioned as thought leaders and subject matter experts. This helps build brand authority and helps to differentiate companies in the marketplace.

By investing in training based on the very latest strategies, techniques and market activity, you can gain a real edge over your competitors.

2. Increased Sales Productivity

Productivity can be difficult to measure in many roles, however, in sales there is a tangible figure every month that can be used as a good indicator.

That’s not to say that your MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) or other revenue goals are the only indicator of productivity, but it’s always the ultimate figure that sales reps are judged by.

Whereby sales training is about the transfer of knowledge, Sales Coaching is about the practical implementation of that knowledge in the field. This means that coaching is the part that drives productivity in the sales team.

With studies showing that 83% of employees want to learn new skills sales training and coaching can make your team more productive and efficient. Quality sales coaching sessions can inspire your team and help them get out of a rut.

You may find that some of your employees feel that they know all there is to know about driving sales. However, the market is always changing, and what works one year isn’t always as effective 12 months later.

Some of your employees may have more sales potential than they think, and training and coaching can help them unlock this.

3. Closing Bigger & Better Deals

Many times human beings create their own glass ceilings and get stuck. Salespeople are susceptible to this and often suffer from self limiting beliefs around deal sizes, sales behaviours and the whole sales process.

Sales training can give your staff the skills they need to secure bigger, more lucrative deals, however without coaching they will quickly lose the new skills and revert back to type.

A good sales coach helps embed the new skills and strategies your sales reps learn in training and helps hold them accountable to using the new skills. As your team become more knowledgeable and confident, they’re more likely to close more deals and bigger ones.

By using highly experienced sales coaches who live and breathe sales you are in effect fast tracking your team past all the typical problems they will encounter that slow down company growth.

Your team will learn about the latest best practices that they can follow whilst attempting to close deals. The more successful your sales reps become, the more their confidence will grow. Success breeds success.

4. Win More New Clients

Often the most difficult activity in sales is generating new business. Sales prospecting, lead generation, whatever you call it in your business filling the top of your sales funnel is always a challenge in B2B sales.

The problem with prospecting is that nobody wants to do it, but it still needs to be done. Many of the problems associated with sales prospecting are connected to the mindset of the sales reps.

It’s easy to churn out 70 calls a day, and even when you achieve some success it’s difficult to get motivated to come back in day after day and make more calls.

The job of the modern sales coach isn’t just to help improve your telephone skills, or the number of dials you make every day. A great sales coach will take a more strategic approach, and work with you on the bigger picture – revenue goals, sales coals, sales campaigns that dramatically increase your sales results.

This in turn helps to motivate and inspire your staff, and get them thinking more strategically about the sales process.

5. Boost Workplace Morale

Great sales coaching can also boost confidence and improve morale amongst your staff. Research by LinkedIn shows that 91% of people agree that teams that learn new skills together are more successful.

Furthermore 90% of people surveyed believe that team learning helps foster a sense of belonging to the organisation.

Whilst not everyone will, the majority of your team members are likely to appreciate the effort you’ve put into training them, and helping them improve their knowledge and skills.

Investing in training shows your staff that you care about their career development and want them to achieve more. If staff feel valued, they are more likely to meet their goals and stay with the organisation longer.

Employee satisfaction can be worth its weight is key when it achieving customer satisfaction and meeting business targets. Training can also refresh their knowledge so they can follow and new best practices and anything they may have forgotten or become unclear about.

6. Increased Decision Making by Sales Reps

Many companies struggle to grow because there are bottlenecks in their internal decision-making process. These bottlenecks occur when sales reps do not have the confidence or knowledge to make any form of decision.

This makes companies less agile and slow to react to changes in the market. Many companies are investing in sales training and coaching in order to improve the decision-making skills of their sales leadership team.

Effective sales coaching can help your team recognise and capitalise on opportunities to drive not only your business forward, but their professional development too.

Sales trainers act as a sounding board and can listen to your Teams ideas and help them fine-tune them to make them more effective in real-world situations.

Other benefits of sales coaching are that your team can become more creative and you will foster an environment where they feel more comfortable discussing new ideas.

6. Virtual or Remote Sales Coaching

During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 many salespeople were forced to work from home. Homeworking was easier for some than others, however, many studies showed that people felt less connected and even unsettled when working from home.

Many Field Salespeople who had spent their lives on out on the road where suddenly confined to their home and confronted with a completely new way of selling. These are exactly the sort of scenarios where coaching can help people adjust to new circumstances and maintain performance.

In many cases sales reps had to retrain on how to sell remotely using tools like MS Teams and Zoom. Sales training and coaching can bring your remote team together and make it more than the sum of its parts.

The best sales trainers don’t just focus on boosting individual performance but foster a sense of teamwork and unity between your staff. To close big deals in the modern sales world takes a Team and not just one individual.

If everyone is using a common sales language and are working together at the best of their abilities, you’re more likely to close bigger and better deals than ever before.

7. Sales Coaching Tips

1. Focus on One-on-One Coaching

One of the most impactful sales coaching tips is to prioritize one-on-one coaching sessions. Sales representatives often struggle with specific challenges unique to their roles. By tailoring these sessions to the individual’s needs, a sales coach can offer the most relevant content and actionable advice. This personalized approach enables sales reps to make progress more effectively, ultimately achieving their business goals and hitting quotas.

2. Implement an Effective Coaching Program

An effective coaching program is essential for any sales organization looking to improve its sales performance. By regularly conducting coaching sessions on a monthly basis, sales managers can keep their teams on track. The best coaching programs include a formal process for providing ongoing feedback, focusing on areas for improvement, and setting clear objectives. Implementing such a program can significantly impact your team’s effectiveness and overall success.

3. Encourage Role Play and Real-Life Scenarios

Role play is a crucial component of sales coaching that allows salespeople to practice real-life scenarios in a safe environment. This technique not only prepares them for potential sales situations but also helps them to refine their selling techniques and overcome common obstacles. By simulating conversations with prospects, sales reps can better articulate their value propositions, handle objections, and close deals more effectively.

4. Offer Constructive Criticism and Praise

Balancing constructive criticism with praise is vital in sales coaching. While it’s important to address areas where sales reps need to improve, recognizing their strengths and achievements is equally crucial. Offering encouragement and celebrating small wins can boost self-motivation and foster a positive coaching environment. Remember, the goal is to create an environment where salespeople feel supported and motivated to excel.

5. Align Coaching with Business Goals

To ensure your sales coaching efforts lead to tangible results, it’s important to align your coaching activities with your organization’s business goals. Regularly reviewing progress toward quotas, discussing action plans, and adjusting strategies as needed will help keep your team focused on what matters most. By aligning coaching with business objectives, you can create a win-win scenario where both individual reps and the organization as a whole achieve success.

6. Utilize Technology for Continuous Improvement

Leveraging technology like CRM systems and sales analytics tools can enhance the effectiveness of your coaching program. These tools provide valuable insights into sales performance, helping coaches identify areas for improvement and track progress over time. Additionally, video recordings of sales calls can be reviewed during coaching sessions to offer specific, actionable feedback. Incorporating technology into your coaching process not only improves efficiency but also ensures that your coaching remains data-driven and impactful.

7. Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

Sales coaching should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. Encouraging a culture of continuous learning within your sales organization is key to long-term success. Provide your team with professional development opportunities, such as sales training courses or workshops, to help them grow their skills. A great coach knows that developing people is a continuous journey, one that requires commitment, support, and the right resources.

8. Best Practices for Sales Managers in Coaching Sessions

When it comes to improving the performance of sales representatives, the role of a sales manager in coaching sessions is crucial. Conducting effective coaching sessions requires a structured approach that leverages insights, encourages motivation, and focuses on the specific needs of each team member. Below are some best practices that sales management can follow to ensure their coaching sessions get the best results:

1. Understand Your Team’s Needs:
Sales managers should begin by identifying the unique strengths and weaknesses of each sales representative. By conducting a thorough analysis and reflecting on past performance, managers can tailor coaching sessions to address the specific challenges that sales reps struggle with, ensuring that each session is impactful.

2. Set Clear Objectives:
Establishing clear, actionable goals is essential for any coaching session. Sales managers should define what success looks like and communicate these objectives effectively to their team. Whether it’s improving close rates, enhancing product knowledge, or mastering objection handling, having a defined goal helps in tracking progress and ensuring accountability.

3. Incorporate Regular Feedback:
Consistent feedback is a key component of successful coaching. Sales managers should provide constructive criticism while also recognizing the achievements of their sales reps. Regular feedback, given during weekly one-on-ones or after team meetings, helps reinforce positive behaviors and correct any areas of concern.

4. Utilize Role-Playing Scenarios:
Role-playing is an excellent way for sales representatives to practice and refine their skills. Sales managers should incorporate role-playing exercises into their coaching sessions to simulate real-world scenarios. This approach not only builds confidence but also helps reps think on their feet and improve their performance during actual sales calls.

5. Foster an Open Communication Environment:
Creating an environment where sales reps feel comfortable discussing their challenges and successes is vital. Sales managers should encourage open-ended questions and active participation during coaching sessions. This open communication fosters trust and allows for a more personalized coaching experience.

6. Leverage Data and Technology:
Sales managers can enhance the effectiveness of their coaching sessions by leveraging data-driven insights from CRM systems and other sales tools. Analyzing sales performance data helps in identifying patterns, tracking progress, and making informed decisions. Additionally, using video recordings of sales calls can be a powerful way to provide targeted feedback.

7. Focus on Long-Term Development:
While addressing immediate performance issues is important, sales managers should also focus on the long-term development of their team members. This includes providing professional development opportunities, offering career guidance, and helping reps build a path toward achieving their career goals.

8. Balance Between Guidance and Autonomy:
A great sales manager knows when to provide guidance and when to allow reps to take ownership of their learning. Striking the right balance between offering direction and encouraging autonomy empowers sales reps to take initiative and develop their problem-solving skills.

9. Track and Measure Progress:
Regularly tracking and measuring the effectiveness of coaching sessions is critical. Sales managers should set key performance indicators (KPIs) and use these metrics to evaluate progress over time. This approach ensures that the coaching process is aligned with the overall sales goals of the organization.

By implementing these sales coaching activities, sales managers can conduct coaching sessions that not only improve individual performance but also contribute to the overall success of the sales organization. Effective coaching sessions are a blend of insight, motivation, and structured guidance, and when done right, they have the power to transform average companies into high-performing sales teams.

9. Sales Coaching Techniques

Sales coaching is a critical part of any effective coaching program, especially in a dynamic sales organization where sales representatives are constantly adapting to new challenges. Here are some essential sales coaching techniques to help your sales reps succeed:

1. One-on-One Coaching for Personalized Development

Personal 121 coaching sessions are an effective way to address the unique needs of individual sales representatives. Often a Sales rep may struggle with specific obstacles in their role, and these tailored sessions allow coaches to provide relevant content and actionable advice. By making personal coaching a top priority, sales coaches can focus on developing core performers, thereby improving overall sales performance and achieving business goals.

2. Implementing an Effective Coaching Program

A structured and effective sales coaching program is essential for ongoing development and quota attainment. According to CSO Insights, a well-implemented coaching process leads to significant improvement in close rates and overall sales performance. By scheduling coaching sessions on a monthly basis and providing ongoing feedback, managers can ensure their teams are consistently making progress. Importantly, these sessions should be seen as opportunities for constructive criticism and praise, helping to motivate and guide reps toward success.

3. Role Play to Prepare for Real-World Scenarios

Of all the sales coaching activities you could implement, Role play is by far the most productive. Role play is a proven technique that prepares salespeople for real-world interactions with prospects. By practicing different approaches in a controlled environment, the sales rep can build confidence and refine their techniques. This method not only helps reps articulate value propositions more effectively but also enables them to overcome common objections they may face during sales calls.

4. Leveraging Technology for Enhanced Coaching

The use of CRM systems and other sales enablement tools is crucial in modern sales coaching. These technologies provide valuable insights into sales activities, allowing coaches to track performance, identify areas for improvement, and review sales calls for feedback. By integrating technology into your coaching sessions, you can ensure that your coaching is data-driven and tailored to the specific needs of your sales team.

5. Encouraging a Culture of Continuous Learning

Creating an environment that fosters continuous learning is vital for long-term success. Sales coaching should not be a one-time event but rather an ongoing process that aligns with the organization’s goals. By offering professional development opportunities and encouraging self-motivation, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are consistently developing and improving. This culture of continuous learning will ultimately lead to greater job satisfaction and higher retention rates.

6. Aligning Coaching with Business Goals

To maximize the impact of sales coaching, it’s crucial to align coaching activities with the organization’s business objectives. Regularly reviewing progress and setting action plans based on these goals helps create a win-win situation where both the sales reps and the organization achieve their targets. By focusing on these main points during coaching sessions, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are on track to hit their quotas.

7. Fostering Trust and Ownership Among Reps

Effective sales coaching is built on a foundation of trust and ownership. Sales coaches must foster an environment where reps feel supported and accountable for their progress. By involving reps in the decision-making process and encouraging them to take ownership of their development, coaches can empower them to achieve success. This approach not only leads to better results but also helps build stronger, more resilient sales teams.

By implementing these sales coaching techniques, you can create an effective and motivating environment that drives your sales team toward success.

10. Coaching your Sales Team in a Structured Way

It’s common for companies to know exactly what kind of training their teams need. However, many sales management teams are unclear about how the training should be structured.

Structure is important because it ensures that the training sticks and is embedded in the organisation. Without any form of structure you will find participants forget up to 98% of what they learn in training.

Experienced training providers and coaches can help you examine your current sales culture and build a training programme that’s specifically tailored to your organisations needs.

A sales training provider can carry out research such as a training needs analysis before training and coaching takes place. Any training and coaching should also be aligned with the companies sales strategy.

For example, if there is a need from the business to reduce customer churn the training and coaching on this topic might be a priority.

Training can also be built around new product launches and sales campaigns and wherever possible should be built around your current sales challenges.

11. Product and Service Training

Buyers have very little time to spend with sales reps and when they do they want to talk to salespeople who understand their industry, their business and their own products and services.

For any new sales rep this can be a huge challenge as they get up to speed on products and services.

Buyers expect salespeople to know all the answers to their questions, and their products inside out. including all their features and benefits. While training supports features and benefits, coaching provides the all important bridge between them, and what relevance and value they provide to the customer.

Sales coaches can help reps gain a deeper, richer understanding of the context and relevance of the products that they’re selling. This in turn allows them to emphasise their value when discussing them with customers.

A quality sales coach will encourage your team members to talk about the most important features of your solutions, so your prospects can clearly see how beneficial they are, resulting in more sales success for everyone.

12. Coaching Sales Managers

Many companies overlook one of the most important elements of any successful sales coaching program, namely the sales manager.

In most cases a sales manager also fulfils the role of the sales coach and as such has a huge influence on the success of the sales team.

Coaching sales people will have limited results if the overall coaching program does not include the sales manager.

Modern sales managers set the bar in terms of productivity and sales performance, so unless they are learning and improving, neither will their team be.

Most sales managers have neither been trained in sales management, let alone as a sales coach.

Running an effective sales coaching programme is very different from being a great sales person or sales manager.

13. Virtual Selling

The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns resulted in many traditional field sales reps being taken off the road and working from home.

Despite most lockdowns having lifted the traditional field sales role has in some cases merged into a hybrid role and in other cases been removed completely.

Virtual selling is here to stay and for most organisations this represented an immediate need for sales coaching and training to support reps in their changed environments.

Sales Managers with no training as sales coaches where thrown into the limelight, and overnight were required to be the sales coach.

In addition to their management duties, overnight they now had strategic coaching, tactical coaching, sales cycle coaching team motivation, coaching sales calls, coaching underperforming sales reps, one on one meetings, group sessions to keep their team motivated, boost engagement maintain accountability and sales performance.

All this whilst managing their own performance and continuing to meet the revenue and sales goals and overall sales success of the organisation. Sales managers need support, they need professional development programs themselves if they are in turn expected to support other team members.

Remote selling requires a different skill set and different coaching techniques in order to deliver results.

14. In Conclusion

If you’re interested in providing structured and effective sales coaching program that’s specifically based on your needs, we would love to talk with you. Sales coaching can reverse any negative sales trends, make your team more adept at selling, improve your sales processes and increase morale within your workforce.

By getting your sales leaders on board and involved in the training and coaching process, you can increase the chances of the training being successful.

Sales coaching can also unite sales teams, help you close bigger, better and more lucrative deals, enhance your revenue, help you win new clients, and retain existing ones. Few companies regret their decision to invest in sales coaching.

Klozers has different sales coaching programs available for salespeople, sales managers and business leaders. We have built our business on our ability to train and coach sales professionals across various industries and love what we do.

10 Essential Benefits of Teamwork that Drive Growth

by Iain Swanston

Lees meer

12 Critical Objectives of Sales Management

by Iain Swanston

The Objectives of Sales Management

There are many objectives and goals for sales management and the importance of each will vary from business to business.

Business to business sales can be complex, with many variables and whilst the obvious objectives of revenue, profitability and growth are important it’s easy to argue a case for the plethora of other objectives such as customer satisfaction, team morale, employee retention.

Effective sales management is the key to running every successful sales team. When sales management is executed correctly, the rest of your enterprise benefits.

Sales managers are responsible for inspiring teams, leading by example, maximising profits and providing customers with the best experience to make sure they return for more.

We’ve resisted the urge to include the all to common piece around smart goals, because we assume your past all that and looking for something more meaningful.

So, we’ve listed below what we believe to be the main objectives of sales management, enjoy.

1. Sales Plan

We’ve listed sales plan at the very start because of it’s importance. Without a plan it’s difficult to track progress, meet or exceed your goals and align your sales team around those goals.

Quite simply, the sales plan ensures that not only is everyone on your company boat rowing in the same direction, it ensures that the boat itself is going in the right direction.

As with any objective or goal, the sales manager should be measured on the execution of the sales plan.

For some reason the majority of companies do not have a sales plan and miss out on the many benefits they bring.

2. Sales Strategy

Strategy is listed in the dictionary as “an approach” and although it sounds simple coming up with the best approach or strategy to how you gain maximum market penetration with the budget available to you is never easy.

At best if you nail your sales strategy sales will take off and at worst you will find that sales become like wading through treacle. An eternal hardship that consumes any profits you dreamed of as it sucks the life from your business.

Once you’ve agreed on a strategy you need to review this on a monthly basis and adjust as required.

Beware however, of changing your strategy before it has had a chance to mature or you might just end up going round in circles.

Once you’ve decided on your sales strategy the next challenge is aligning all your resources including the sales team and executing on that strategy.

3. Reporting and Metrics

Before you start to implement and share your strategy and sales plan you will need to give some thought as to how you are going to measure your progress.

Data is the new oil and Sales reporting is an essential part of the modern sales managers day to day activities.

Your reporting system should tell you everything from how well your reps are performing on a daily basis, to the cost of customer acquisition on your latest sales campaign.

Reports will tell you which areas you are succeeding in and areas need your attention. You should draw up a list of baseline sales metrics and then from there you can measure progress towards your targets.

In almost every scenario, you will be asked to generate Management Reports for your board and these will include things like your current sales funnel/sales pipeline which will provide information such as how many live deals you currently have in your funnel, the average size of each deal and the average length of the journey through the funnel.

It’s critically important that you not only can generate the right reports, but that you can interpret the results in a meaningful way.

4. Sales Performance

There is no one individual who has as much influence over sales than the sales manager.

Every day the Manager sets the bar between what is acceptable and what is not, in terms performance from their team.

They are responsible for not just managing, but also the training, coaching and development of the sales team.

Every salesperson wants to sell, every salesperson wants to be part of a winning team and the sales managers that succeed are those that focus on 2 things:

They do everything they can to help salespeople sell more
They do everything they can to develop their salespeople.

Unfortunately, as the manager has the power to make everything a success, they can also be architects of their own failure.

5. Key duties of the Sales Manager

Sales managers are tasked with developing sales teams, coordinating all operations within sales departments and identifying and implement the right sales techniques to deliver success.

Although the aim is to meet sales targets, it’s not uncommon for these aims to be surpassed.

The right sales management processes can give you a substantial edge over your competitors and ensure your company is thriving rather than simply surviving.

As a minimum the sales manager should address the following areas in their plan. Strategy, Process, People, Channels, Technology, Customers and Leadership

6. Team Morale

Morale is extremely important when it comes to building a winning sales team. The more inspired and confident your team are, the more they will achieve.

This is why it’s so important to ensure each member of your team feels listened to and respected. The easiest way to do this is by including them in the sales planning wherever possible.

Provide real-time information on as much as possible including things like the exact costs to the business to employ them, the profitability of your sales and how many deals they need to close to breakeven in terms of their own cost to the company.

Transparency is essential, so make sure each member of your team knows how well you’re currently performing.

What’s also important in terms of morale is being completely fair and not having any personal favourites in the team.

It’s normally easy for managers not to have favourites, however, many find it more difficult to deal with disruptive sales reps and often ignore them rather than look to resolve the problem.

Often times the most disruptive sales reps can be a top performer but you will still need to let them go if you feel they are damaging the overall morale and productivity of the team.

It’s incredibly important to foster a positive workplace culture where workplace friction is addressed as soon as it arises.

7. Setting realistic but ambitious targets

When it comes to setting your sales targets it’s vital to strike a balance between being ambitious and being realistic.

If your targets are unrealistically high, your sales team and your sales team fall so far behind that they don’t believe they can hit those targets, they will quickly become demotivated.

We recommend that you include your sales team as part of the planning process to help you set your sales targets.

By doing this you are much more likely to get buy in from the sales team and as the manager, you can still guide the team to create targets that are challenging.

Unrealistic targets will only serve to damage morale substantially and in turn, this will lower the overall performance of the team.

Managers should guide and coach their team members through the entire period of the targets to help ensure they remain on track and re-motivate them if they begin to lose confidence.

Managers typically have lots of experiences and skills that they can draw on from when they were a salesperson that will support their sales reps.

8. Building a sales funnel

Creating a sales funnel that continually is topped up with new, high quality sales leads is one of the most important objectives of sales management.

A sales funnel, also known as a pipeline is used to outline each step a customer takes throughout their journey towards making a purchase.

In B2B sales the salespeople are responsible for moving the deals or opportunities through the sales funnel.

There is nothing more demotivating to sales reps than the struggle to fill the sales funnel with new leads. It’s therefore important that you work with your marketing team to ensure a continuous flow of good quality sales leads.

If you are using Sales Development Reps (SDRs) to generate their own sales leads then you must give them the strategies and tactics to generate those leads.

Tactics like cold calling and cold email campaigns do work but they on their own it is a slow way to scale your business. As the sales manager it’s your responsibility to break the entire sales process down into easy, manageable stages.

Sales funnels enable salespeople to remain organised and in control, especially when used in conjunction with a good CRM system.

With the right CRM dashboards in place Sales reps can easily see the progress they have already made towards their sales targets.

This in turn will inspire them to continue focussing on moving deals through the sales funnel.

9. When can I expect results?

In our experience every overnight success has taken years of hard work to get there. With that said, you should see early indications of success in months, not years.

It’s important to manage expectations and collectively agree what success looks like in the initial phases.

This is why we are such advocates of creating a sales plan that everyone can align themselves behind.

Your sales plan should identify what we call the lead indicators rather than the lag indicators for success and you can start tracking them immediately.

It’s unlikely your sales management will deliver exceptional results immediately but with planning, patience and persistence you will slowly turn the ship around.

Trial-and-error can play a big role in helping you create the right sales process for you.

Even when you start seeing the results that you’ve been aiming for, you should always be prepared to make amendments as customer behaviours and requirements, technology and markets change.

10. Motivating your Sales Team

As a sales manager, you will be tasked with overseeing things like data, technology, processes and sales pipelines which you may or may not find easy.

However, often the biggest challenge is people management and listening to your team is very important.

It’s essential to ask your team what drives them and what their personal goals are and then tie them into your own business objectives.

Not every member of your sales team will be motivated by money alone, so try to find out what else drives them and why they were interested in a career in sales in the first place.

It’s also essential to deliver additional support for those members working remotely during any lockdown period.

Some team members will be comfortable working from home, whilst others will prefer to be out in the field visiting customers and working in a busy office environment.

11. Do great salespeople make great sales managers?

One problem many companies encounter is that not all great salespeople make a fantastic sales manager.

Being a sales manager requires a whole host of different skills not required by salespeople, and it may take time to start seeing success once you’ve moved from making sales to overseeing them.

Most of the key tasks assigned to sales managers are strategic versus the tactical skills required by salespeople.

For example, data analysis is hugely important for every sales manager, as is planning, strategy and people management.

In addition, identifying realistic goals, hiring the right salespeople, creating incentives, arranging ongoing training and learning and matching the right kind of guidance to specific individuals in your team are all important.

12. Learning & Development

It’s easy to overlook training as a Sales Manager because there never seems to be any free time for developing your team or indeed yourself.

Training falls into the category of important/not urgent and because of this it often gets overlooked. In nearly every case the salespeople who don’t want training are those that need it the most.

Learning and development starts by hiring the right salespeople and only recruiting those who are driven and determined with great people skills.

The team that you inherit may be very different from this and it’s your objective as the sales manager to improve the team that you’re working with over the coming months or years.

It’s also important to seek out coachable people as these people are great learners and will continuously improve given the right support.

You will encounter people that already have good sales skills but seem unwilling to continue learning or taking feedback and this can become a problem.

These people not only don’t want to learn but they don’t want others to learn either and can sabotage and undermine your leadership.

Under these circumstances, as long as you have done everything possible to try and support these people if they still refuse then you will have no alternative to letting them go.

If you’re able to offer real-time information that you can display in the workplace, you should certainly do this as this creates incentives and keeps your salespeople’s eyes on the ball.

Transparency is essential, so make sure each member of your team knows how well you’re currently performing.

In conclusion

Sales managers are arguably the single most important part of your sales team and the right manager will help you achieve outstanding results when they build an exceptional and focussed team that they take the time to support.

They will ensure the organisation has the right people, structures, technology and sales processes in place progress which can be tracked and clearly visible for all the stakeholders.

By ensuring team members remain willing to learn and committing to learning more themselves, sales managers can deliver real success, even in the most competitive markets.

Sales Negotiation Training

by Iain Swanston

Key Negotiation Skills – Introduction

There is a common misconception that sales negotiation skills are only required towards the end of the sales process. The part in every sales process where costs and terms are agreed. Whilst this is undoubtedly true, it’s also true that the best salespeople are negotiating all the way through the sales process. In fact every Professional salesperson negotiates, every single day which is why it’s an important part of any training programme.

From negotiating with their children on what to have for breakfast, to negotiating with a Partner on where to go for dinner. In between times they will negotiate workloads with their line managers, negotiate meeting times with co-workers, negotiate dates & times for appointments with prospects and lastly negotiating sales contracts, project delivery and aftercare contracts. In short, Negotiation is actually unavoidable, and the ability to Negotiate is a core skill for every Salesperson.

Planning for Sales Negotiations

Like most things in life when it comes to Negotiation knowledge is power. The more information you have and better prepared you are then the more likely you will achieve a successful negotiation. Follow the information below to discover how to research and plan your next negotiation.

Sales Negotiation Goals

These are the needs, wants and desires of the parties involved in the negotiation. In business this can be complicated as not only may both sides have differing goals, but parties within each side may have differing and even conflicting Goals.

Goals can be subjective for example “We need to increase the confidence of our people.” or they can be more objective like “We need to reduce our overheads by 10 this quarter”. Either way it’s important to know both your own Goals and that of the other side. Important questions you must ask are:

Have we identified all the Goals?
What are the Prioritised Goals?
What are the Business Goals?
What are the Personal Goals?
Are there conflicting Goals?

Business Goals Examples	Personal Goals Examples
Strategic	Security
Change	Satisfaction
Growth	Peer Pressure
Improvement	Financial Gain

Please note Goals are NOT the same as outcomes.

Example:

Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.

The Outcome is the Negotiated agreement that they come to.

Negotiation Options

These are all the possible solutions that satisfy the goals of both parties. They are all possibilities that both parties agree or say Yes to.

By investing time to explore all the Options then you are more likely to find:

Alternative solutions
Enable both parties to achieve their goals
Reach the Best Possible Agreement (BPA)

Example:

Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Criteria for Negotiation

Criteria are the “terms” of any possible Option

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Criteria – George needs to guarantee a minimum payment every month regardless of the profitability of that month. Mike needs to ensure ensure he will not be liable for any warranty, liability or compensations claims from the period before he take responsibility/ownership of the business.

Get expert Sales Negotiation Training from our Sales Coaches

Sales Negotiation Coaching — Sales Negotiation Training

CNA – Cost of No Agreement

Not all Negotiations end in an agreement, it is therefore vital before entering into any Negotiation that you first work out what the Cost of No Agreement is for both parties. The costs of no agreement can be both Objective and Subjective.

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (Objective) however he has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate (Subjective) for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business (Objective) but knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed (Subjective) if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.

The Subjective Cost of No Agreement can be more powerful than the Objective ones as people make decisions emotionally and then justify their position intellectually afterwards.

BATNA – Best Alternative to No Agreement

Not all Negotiations end in an Agreement, it is therefore vital before entering into any Negotiations that you first work out what the Best Alternative to No Agreement is. In some cases you may well experience that the other party is so entrenched in their position that they have no desire to Negotiate. BATNA is typically but not always, an alternative course of action that can be taken if no agreement is reached.

BATNA helps you prepare for a Negotiation by:

Helps prevent you from agreeing to something you will regret
Defining your Minimum Possible Agreement (MPA)
Provides you with a Plan B
Helps prevent you from over or underestimating the your own and the other party’s position
Helps you understand where the leverage is
Identifying alternative Options

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (CNA) and has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business and has spent £3,000 with Solicitors and Accountants thus far completing his due diligence on the company.

BATNA – George is in discussion with his Lawyers to explore the possibilities of a Management Buyout for the business. Mike knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.

Concessions for Negotiation

A concession is something given to the other party in furtherance of the agreement. These concessions should be identified in advance and segmented for both parties in terms of:

High Value – High Cost

High Value – Low Cost

Remember – Never give anything away without receiving something of equal or greater value in return.

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Concessions – George is prepared to spend 3 months of his time ensuring during the handover period which is Low Cost to him as he will be retired but High Value to Mike as he is new to the industry and recognises the benefit of George’s experience.

Mike is prepared to move quickly which has no cost to him however this is High Value to George as the last thing he wants is a long protracted sale.

Negotiation Strategies

Aggressive Tactics

Shoot the hostage
- This strategy is extremely aggressive as it involves an immediate offer to walk away with no deal which is designed to throw and unsettle the other party. This is often delivered in a reluctant tone “we don’t want to do this but…”,
Delaying tactics
- When time is clearly on one parties side the process can often be deliberately slowed which is extremely effective when there are cost implications if talks over run. This tactic also applies if the other party has another meeting or needs to leave. The negotiator deliberately talks around the subject to delay the real conversation and then uses time to put pressure on the other party to come to an agreement.
Poor Me
- This strategy is used to play the false victim that needs rescued by the other party.
Last Minute.com
- As the name suggests this strategy involves the Negotiator agreeing to a solution right up until they are required to sign and then withdrawing. The withdrawal is usually followed up quickly with a counter offer at dramatically reduced terms.
Misleading/lying
- Often Negotiators will make exaggerated claims or even lie so without hard data to support them you should discount these. They may also issue warnings and threats or make matters personal to unbalance you.
Missing People
- Everyone knows the importance of having all the Decision Makers in the room but Negotiators may even turn up with complete strangers. In sales some companies will remove Sales People from the final negotiations. If the Sales People have a relationship with the other party they could be more empathetic and weaker negotiators. Turning up without warning with complete strangers also unbalances the other party.

Co-operative Tactics

Agree on the Process
- Spend time up front agreeing the process and format of the Negotiations including what’s in scope and what’s not.
Win Win Agreements
- Most professional Negotiators accept that any final agreement must be fair and sustainable for the life of the time period. In most business scenarios it should never be win at all costs as this destroys relationships.
Matching Rights
- Offer the other party the right to match any solution that you receive. For example if one of two business partners decides to sell their shares to another party they may have the agreement that the other party gets first refusal if they match the offer.
Contingent Agreements
- These are simply agreements based on future events. Financial Bonus may be tied to Performance. Football transfer fees can be include Contingent Agreements that provides the selling club additional revenue if a player is sold on and or if a player is capped by their country or simply makes a certain number of appearances.
Multiple Offers
- When multiple offers are placed on the table this allows both parties to indicate preferences and encourages creativity as a winning hybrid offer can be formed. Placing one offer on the table often leads to a refusal and a stall in the process.

Sales Negotiation Checklist

1. Be prepared to walk away. Sales Negotiation is 70% Mindset and 30% Strategy and unless you are prepared to walk away, no strategy will help you.

2. It’s not what you charge it’s what your worth. Thoroughly research the market and discuss with the buyer the Value you bring to the table?

3. Take council from colleagues and external advisors and agree a pre-meeting strategy for the negotiations then PRACTICE.

4. Never give anything away without receiving something of equal or greater value in return.

5. Never enter a Negotiation without first providing your price and outline terms in advance, to anchor the prospect to a higher number and terms.

6. Where possible in high value deals do not include your sales people in Negotiations, as they will be emotionally involved in the sale and not objective.

7. Ensure everyone in your team have agreed in advance your trade-offs, your concessions, and your best alternative to a negotiated settlement.

8. You must be comfortable with silence and at most only talk 30% of the time, as the more you talk the more information you are giving away.

9. If it’s not Win Win then you run the danger of the prospect backing out or failing to implement your agreement, then the lawyers are the only winners.

10. Negotiation is between human beings, you must therefore be familiar with Human Psychology, DiSC, Neuro Linguistic and Programming.

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Hoe bouw je een SaaS-verkoopkanaal

by Iain Swanston

1. Wat is een Sales Funnel?

Een sales funnel is een opeenvolging van acties, gebeurtenissen of stadia die een gebruiker doorloopt voordat hij een product of dienst koopt. Sales funnels zijn ontworpen om marketeers in staat te stellen het verkoopproces te volgen, vast te leggen en te optimaliseren om de resultaten te verbeteren.

U kunt hier meer te weten komen over onze SaaS sales training.

2. Hoe bouw je een SaaS verkoop trechter

Uw SaaS sales funnel is een essentieel onderdeel van uw Apps succes. Als je SaaS-apps aanbiedt, is het creëren van een herhaalbare, schaalbare en traceerbare sales funnel een van de belangrijke stappen die je moet nemen.

Klinkt makkelijk? Denk dan nog eens na. De sales funnel is het punt waar veel start-ups die overgaan op het genereren van inkomsten moeite mee hebben, en in veel gevallen falen.

Voordat u begint met het bouwen van uw funnel is het de moeite waard om eerst te overwegen waar u zich bevindt in uw app reis.

3. De drie hoofdfasen van SaaS-ontwikkeling

Helaas is er in de verkoop nooit een pasklare oplossing, en het startpunt voor het bouwen van een SaaS-verkoop funnel is afhankelijk van waar je bent, in termen van de drie belangrijkste fasen van een SaaS-business?

Ben je bij:
Fase 1: het begin van de reis waarbij de stichter en het primaire team nog bezig zijn om de product/markt fit vast te stellen.

Fase 2: de oprichter en de leden van het eerste team hebben bewezen dat het product en de markt bij elkaar passen en bewijzen dat zij systemen en processen kunnen implementeren die anderen kunnen gebruiken om te verkopen.

Fase 3, de laatste horde waarin u een bewezen product-markt fit hebt, u de juiste systemen en processen voor schaalvergroting hebt geïdentificeerd en bewezen en u nu klaar bent om uw verkoop te schalen, u te concentreren op klantenwerving en uw MRR op te bouwen.

De strategieën die je gebruikt voor het bouwen van een SaaS sales funnel zullen variëren afhankelijk van wat je precies geleerd hebt in stap 1 hierboven.

Voor deze oefening ga ik er dus van uit dat u bij stap 1 bent. Als je nog steeds moeite hebt om een sales funnel op te bouwen bij stap 2 en 3 dan heb je ofwel iets gemist bij stap 1 of er is iets veranderd waardoor alles wat je geleerd hebt bij stap 1 niet meer werkt.

4. Bouw een marketing funnel voor uw sales funnel

Bij elk bedrijf is het belangrijk dat u de optimale omstandigheden creëert voor uw verkoopteam om succesvol te zijn. In de SaaS-wereld is het niet genoeg om een goede website te hebben, je hebt een website nodig die:

a) gevonden kunnen worden door uw producten en diensten in de belangrijkste zoekmachines – Google, Bing, Yahoo & YouTube
b) kan worden gevonden door de problemen die u oplost in de grote zoekmachines – Google, Bing, Yahoo & YouTube
c) webverkeer kan omzetten in marketing gekwalificeerde leads

Veel bedrijven negeren dit en haasten zich om een outbound sales team op te bouwen. Het is een feit dat elke potentiële prospect die uw outbound Team interesseert, vervolgens naar uw website zal gaan om verder onderzoek te doen.

Tenzij de webervaring gelijk is aan of groter dan de ervaring van de prospects met uw outbound team, zullen zij onmiddellijk afhaken.

Om een marketing funnel op te bouwen moet je “dwingende user first content” creëren. Dit is inhoud waarnaar de gebruiker actief op zoek is, niet de inhoud die uw verkoop- en marketingteam willen pushen.

Uw SaaS marketing funnel is een essentieel onderdeel van uw Inbound verkoopstrategie. Om dit met succes te doen, moet u in elke fase van het kopersverloop inhoud van hoge kwaliteit creëren, zoals hieronder wordt weergegeven.

De inhoud moet subtiel uw merkverhaal vertellen en het succes dat u aan andere gebruikers hebt gebracht . Maak van je early adopters de helden, niet van jou.

TOFU – Top van trechter
Het eerste deel van uw sales funnel, ook bekend als TOFU, is de bewustwordingsfase van de funnel. De prospect is zich bewust van de problemen die hij heeft en zoekt naar oplossingen.

Uw website moet inhoud hebben die op deze problemen ingaat en uw bedrijf positioneren als de Subject Matter Experts. De meest populaire inhoud hier zou zijn:

Hoe te gidsen
Uitleg video’s
Blog berichten
Lead Magneten

In dit stadium bevindt de prospect zich in de onderzoeksmodus, niet de koopmodus, en is hij gewoon informatie aan het verzamelen.

Uw prospect is in dit stadium misschien niet eens geïnteresseerd in oplossingen, omdat hij nog steeds probeert zijn eigen problemen nauwkeurig zelf te diagnosticeren. Het is onwaarschijnlijk dat uw prospect in dit stadium met de verkoopafdeling zal willen praten.

Wij raden u aan marketingautomatisering te gebruiken om bij te houden op welke artikelen/pagina’s uw prospects de site binnenkomen, aangezien dit het probleem is dat hen het meest bezighoudt. Dit weten kan het voor sales makkelijker maken om een relevant gesprek met hen te voeren.

U kunt er ook in slagen de prospect te benaderen met chatbots op uw site, maar velen zullen in dit stadium anoniem willen blijven.

Midden van trechter
Het midden van uw verkooptrechter is wanneer prospects specifieke oplossingen beginnen te evalueren op basis van wat ze in fase 1 hebben geleerd. Midden in de trechter inhoud zou omvatten:

Presentaties
Demonstraties
Casestudies

In de praktijk zullen zij een soort shortlist van potentiële leveranciers hebben opgesteld, en vervolgens zullen zij dieper ingaan op de details van elke potentiële oplossing.

In dit stadium is het mogelijk dat de prospect nog steeds geen contact met u opneemt, aangezien hij vaak gewoon onderzoek doet namens andere mensen binnen zijn eigen organisatie en zijn prioriteit nog steeds bij het verzamelen van informatie ligt.

Bodem van trechter
Tegen de tijd dat uw prospect de bodem van uw marketing funnel heeft bereikt, hebben zij in veel gevallen al “gekocht” in een bepaalde leverancier of oplossing.

Zij hebben hun beslissing grotendeels genomen op basis van hun webervaring met het merk, uw verkoopboodschap en uw vermogen om uzelf niet alleen als een echter leider te positioneren, maar als een thought leader in die hun problemen begrijpt.

Bottom of Funnel inhoud zou omvatten dingen zoals:

Prijsstelling
Vergelijkende tabellen
Getuigenissen
Recensies

Voor de eenvoudigere, goedkopere oplossingen zult u merken dat ze nu bereid zijn om de proef op de som te nemen als u een sterke Call to Action (CTA) aanbiedt, terwijl ze voor de duurdere en complexere oplossingen nu zullen overgaan tot verkoop.

De afbeelding hieronder toont waar een eenvoudige marketing funnel overgaat in een winkelwagen en de meer complexe B2B verkoop overgaat in een lead voor verkoop.

Succes zit niet in het kiezen van het juiste model, maar in het bouwen van je eigen model op basis van gegevens en trial and error.

Eenvoudige SaaS Marketing trechter — SaaS-Verkooptrechter

De meeste marketingsoftware houdt nu het gebruikersgedrag op uw website bij en kan lead scoring gebruiken om verkopers te waarschuwen wanneer het beste moment is om prospects proactief te benaderen.

Uit onze eigen ervaring blijkt dat de timing bijna altijd te vroeg is en dat een goed gedefinieerd lead-nurturingprogramma even doeltreffend is.

Om dit te doen moet u in uw marketing ten minste drie verschillende leadmagneten inbouwen waarmee u van uw webbezoekers een abonnee kunt maken zodat u contact kunt houden.

5. Reclame om uw Sales Funnel te vullen

Veel bedrijven vullen met succes hun sales funnel via reclame. Digitaal adverteren is volwassen geworden tot een niveau dat aanzienlijke tracking en rapportage mogelijk maakt, zodat u binnen een paar weken kunt begrijpen wat uw conversieratio en CAC zullen zijn.

In eerste instantie zouden wij pleiten voor “Re-targeting Campaigns”. Dit is gewoon het proces van het plaatsen van advertenties voor mensen die uw website al hebben bezocht.

Studies tonen aan dat retargeting zeven keer effectiever is dan nieuwe campagnes en daarom pleiten wij hiervoor als startpunt.

Deze strategie werkt uitermate goed met een sterke content marketing campagne. Het populairste toevoegkanaal voor B2B is LinkedIn, maar veel bedrijven hebben het ook goed gedaan met Facebook en Instagram.

Onnodig te zeggen dat dit wordt bepaald door uw publiek. Reclame kan worden gebruikt in eenvoudige trechters om de verkoop te stimuleren en in meer complexe trechters om nieuwe aanvragen voor verkopers te genereren.

Voor complexere verkopen kan een bepaalde volgorde nodig zijn waarbij gebruikers klikken op en adverteren voor het ontvangen van een leadmagnet, waarbij elke lead 3 dollar kost.

Als u er vervolgens in slaagt 5% van deze nieuwe leads om te zetten, kunt u per verkoop $60 uit reclame aan uw CAC toerekenen.

U kunt een traceerbare reeks of model van elke activiteit bouwen, niet alleen reclame. Bijvoorbeeld evenementen, webinars en telesales, zodat u kunt begrijpen welke activiteiten het meest kosteneffectief zijn, niet alleen voor het vullen van uw trechter, maar ook voor het daadwerkelijk converteren in orders.

6. Hoe bouw je een SaaS verkoop trechter

Uw sales funnel zal variëren afhankelijk van uw verkoopstrategie. Verkoopt u uw app rechtstreeks of via partners? Op welke kanalen heeft u besloten zich in eerste instantie te richten?

1. Identificeer uw Perfecte Prospect Profiel. Dit is de verkopers versie van een marketing persona. Het omvat alles wat een marketing persona zou omvatten, plus wat extra informatie die verkoop helpt om de prospect op een dieper niveau te begrijpen en met hem te communiceren.

2. Bouw uw verkoopboodschap. Een deel van de product/markt fit is begrijpen welk zakelijk en of persoonlijk probleem uw product oplost.

Onze ervaring is dat de meest succesvolle SaaS-diensten bedrijfsoplossingen zijn die bedrijfsproblemen oplossen.

Zodra u begrijpt hoe dit zich verhoudt tot uw eigen product/dienst op een diep niveau, kunt u beginnen met het opbouwen van uw verkoopboodschap.

Dit zijn de woorden en genuanceerde taal waarvan u hebt bewezen dat prospects zich ermee verbinden. Het is niet genoeg om uw eigen bedrijf en oplossingen te kennen, u moet ook uw klanten kennen.

U moet precies weten hoe uw oplossing uw klant helpt geld te besparen, geld te verdienen en hun leven gemakkelijker te maken.

3. Lead Generation Campagne.

Zodra u uw doelprospects hebt geïdentificeerd en uw verkoopboodschap hebt opgebouwd, moet u beginnen te werken aan een Lead Generation-campagne.

Er zijn twee hoofdbenaderingen voor het genereren van leads:

a) Inkomende Leadgeneratie. Inbound lead generation campagnes zijn campagnes waarbij de prospect eerst contact met u opneemt. Zij kunnen een formulier invullen op uw webpagina, u bellen of u een e-mail sturen. Om inbound sales leads te genereren zult u een vorm van content creatie, advertentie campagnes, webinars, referral programma’s of SEO moeten doen.

b) Outbound lead generatie. Outbound lead generation campagnes zijn campagnes waarbij u prospects bereikt via telefoon, e-mail, direct mail, evenementen of account based marketing. Outbound campagnes betekenen steevast dat u een outbound says team moet samenstellen, wat duur kan zijn.

De meeste SaaS-bedrijven gebruiken een combinatie van inbound en outbound, maar bijna altijd ligt de nadruk meer op het ene dan op het andere.

Een zeer ruwe schatting is dat SaaS-diensten die goedkoper zijn en zich op het MKB richten, marketinggericht zijn en voornamelijk op inbound gericht zijn.

SaaS-diensten die zich meer richten op het middensegment van de markt en op ondernemingen, zullen een meer verkoopgerichte aanpak hanteren via Account Based Marketing.

7. Wat zijn de stadia van een SaaS-verkoopfunnel?

De fasen van uw sales funnel zijn eenvoudigweg een reeks stappen die uw prospects doorlopen om een bestelling te plaatsen.

Deze fasen kunnen sterk variëren en er is niet één trechter die je op elke app kunt toepassen. Zelfs als de fasen dezelfde zijn, kan de methode waarmee u prospects door de trechter laat bewegen, verschillen.

Uw verkooptrechter is een goede plaats om te beginnen met het verzamelen van gegevens om de prestaties te meten en na verloop van tijd verbeteringen aan te brengen.

In het algemeen moeten prospects zo snel mogelijk door de sales funnel bewegen – dit wordt de sales cycle of pipe speed genoemd.

Door de snelheid te meten waarmee prospects de cyclus doorlopen, kunt u blokkades in uw trechter identificeren en gebieden waar prospects vertragen.

Deze “knelpunten” zijn de plaatsen waar u verbeteringen moet aanbrengen.

8. Wanneer moet ik mijn SaaS-product aan klanten demonstreren?

De timing van SaaS app-demo’s binnen het verkoopproces is voor veel bedrijven onderwerp van discussie geweest.

Het antwoord op de vraag is helaas “dat hangt ervan af”. Veel bedrijven geven met succes een demo van hun app aan het begin van het verkoopproces, maar er zijn er evenveel die een demo geven aan het begin en dan hun prospects zien verdwijnen in het zwarte gat van voicemail en onbeantwoorde e-mails.

Kortom, hoe goedkoper en eenvoudiger de oplossing, hoe vroeger in het proces u een demo kunt geven en hoe duurder en complexer de oplossing, hoe verder in het verkoopproces de demo moet worden doorgeschoven.

De realiteit is dat ondernemers en verkopers de neiging hebben om haastig een demo te geven van hun app, in de hoop dat de demo de prospect zal overtuigen om in te tekenen.

Zelfs als de prospect gekwalificeerd is en er een goede klik is, loopt een demo zonder enige vorm van diagnose van de pijn van de prospect het risico de prospect te verliezen.

Uw prospect moet weten dat u het weet en dat u hun wereld begrijpt. Dit kan alleen worden bereikt door intelligent en gericht te ondervragen. Als je de verkoop wilt versnellen, vertraag de verkoop dan.

De demo is meestal het grootste hefboomeffect van de verkoper en als u die te snel weggeeft, verliest u het hefboomeffect en naar alle waarschijnlijkheid de prospect.

Als algemene vuistregel geldt: plaats de app-demo zo ver mogelijk terug in uw verkoopproces.

Demo’s kosten tijd en geld, vooral bij complexe verkoop waarbij vaker wel dan niet een demo op maat nodig is.

Demonstraties op maat mogen alleen worden gegeven aan de hogere besluitvormers in het aankoopteam van de prospect. Indien nodig kunt u zelfs twee demo’s hebben binnen het verkoopproces – er zijn geen regels, behalve dat als het werkt, doe het dan.

De meeste verkopers maken de fout om dit deel van het verkoopproces te gebruiken om de voordelen van het product in meer detail uit te leggen.

Als je vertelt, verkoop je niet. Gebruik intelligente indringende vragen om de prospect te laten vertellen hoe de oplossing hun zakelijke pijn zal oplossen.

U moet vermijden te praten over kenmerken waarvan u denkt dat ze voor hen relevant zijn. Als u dit niet hebt ontdekt in de ontdekkingsfase van het verkoopproces, is het inherent riskant om verderop in het proces iets nieuws te introduceren.

Voor de eenvoudigere, goedkopere oplossingen zult u merken dat zij nu bereid zijn om een proefperiode te nemen, terwijl zij voor de duurdere en complexere oplossingen nu contact zullen opnemen met een verkoper.

Om aan te tonen dat zij de nodige zorgvuldigheid hebben betracht, zullen zij altijd met twee of drie potentiële leveranciers spreken.

Dit is niet noodzakelijkerwijs om een leverancier op prijs te verslaan, maar soms moeten zij aan de bredere inkoopgroep binnen hun organisatie duidelijk maken waarom zij een voorkeur hebben.

App trials zijn ook een goede manier om gebruikers over te halen zich aan te melden, maar de conversieratio van trials naar close is meestal slecht in de meeste SaaS-gevallen.

Afhankelijk van de prijsstelling zou u een beheerde proefperiode kunnen aanbieden, zodat zij uw software kunnen evalueren terwijl u hen verder in het verkoopproces begeleidt.

Tijdens een proef kan de prospect zien hoe het product voor hem in de praktijk zal werken. Het is belangrijk dat u de proef op het juiste moment neemt en dat u van tevoren afspreekt wat er gebeurt als de proef slaagt.

We hebben de bovenstaande grafiek gemaakt om te proberen visueel uit te leggen hoe dit voor uw organisatie zou kunnen werken.

In het voorbeeld zal het grootste deel van uw CAC uit marketing bestaan, terwijl in de meer complexe trechter uw kosten marketing, verkoop + klantenonboarding zullen omvatten.

9. SaaS-Verkooptrechter voorbeelden

De onderstaande verkoop funnels zijn voorbeelden. U moet deze NIET kopiëren tenzij ze passen in uw verkoopproces.

Ze zijn ontworpen als startpunt voor wie een verkooptrechter wil ontwikkelen.

Zoals u kunt zien in de grafiek, zijn er veel alternatieven voor de fasen waaruit uw sales funnel bestaat, afhankelijk van het type funnel dat u aan het maken bent.

Voor zuiver digitale trechters zou je kunnen hebben:

Lead Magnet Landing page – waar prospects terechtkomen nadat ze op uw advertentie hebben geklikt
Bevestigingspagina – bevestiging van uw gratis aanbieding, proefperiode of aankoop
Upsell-pagina – waar prospects een kans hebben om extra diensten toe te voegen of te upgraden
Afrekenpagina – waar prospects betalen voor de dienst
Felicitatie- of dankpagina – waar u prospects kunt aanmelden met de juiste volgende stappen.

Verkooptrechter met pijplijn — Hoe bouw je een SaaS-verkoopkanaal

10. SaaS-verkoop trechter metrieken

Als het op metrics aankomt, denken wij dat dit de gebruikelijke sales operations metrics en KPI’s zijn waar de meeste mensen mee vertrouwd zijn. Het spreekt voor zich dat deze gegevens belangrijk zijn en dat u ze moet registreren en erover moet rapporteren.

LTT – conversie van leads naar proeven
Dit is het aantal leads dat is geconverteerd naar een proef.

DCR – Demo conversie ratio
Het aantal demo’s dat succesvol converteert naar de volgende fase in het verkoopproces.

TTS – Omzetting van proef naar verkoop
Dit is het aantal prospects op de gratis proefversie die zijn omgezet in betalende klanten.

LTV – Lifetime Value van de klant
Dit is de gemiddelde totale waarde die een klant zal uitgeven voordat hij de dienst verlaat. Ironisch genoeg kan dit moeilijker te meten zijn naarmate uw product beter is, omdat u zonder klanten niet weet hoe lang zij blijven en wat hun totale waarde voor het bedrijf is.

Churn – Aantal klanten dat vertrekt
Klanten zullen weggaan en dat is niet altijd een slechte zaak. Als de klanten die weggaan passen in uw ICP (Ideal Client Profile) dan heeft u een probleem. Klanten die vertrekken en niet in uw ICP passen, kunnen waardevolle middelen vrijmaken die aan uw ICP kunnen worden besteed.

MRR – maandelijks terugkerende inkomsten
De maandelijkse terugkerende inkomsten geven u een overzicht van uw succes, maar het is slechts een overzicht en u moet kijken naar de details binnen de gegevens om een nauwkeuriger beeld te krijgen.

ARR – Jaarlijkse terugkerende inkomsten
De jaarlijkse recurrente inkomsten geven een goed beeld van de onderneming, maar net als de MRR moet u alle gegevens bestuderen om een nauwkeuriger beeld te krijgen van de gezondheid van uw onderneming.

Verkoopcyclus – de tijd vanaf het eerste contact tot en met een gesloten order
Dit is meestal kort voor eenvoudigere oplossingen met een lagere waarde en langer voor complexe bedrijfsverkopen. Een verkoop aan een Tier 1 bank kan bijvoorbeeld 18 maanden duren van het eerste contact tot de afsluiting.

CAC – kosten voor klantenwerving
Het is belangrijk te begrijpen hoeveel het u kost om één enkele klant te werven. In een ideale wereld zou u dit ontdekken in de eerste fasen van het bedrijf, wanneer u het waardevoorstel bewijst. Zonder dit cijfer is het onmogelijk de systemen en processen in te voeren om het bedrijf te laten groeien, aangezien u niet weet hoeveel u kunt besteden aan marketing en verkoop aan de voorkant.

Negatieve Churn –
Negatieve churn is een krachtige groeimetriek die aangeeft dat de inkomsten uit upselling en cross selling van bestaande klanten opwegen tegen de inkomsten die verloren gaan wanneer klanten vertrekken.

11. Ingediende SaaS-voorstellen

Na de laatste demo, moet je nooit aanbieden om een voorstel te sturen.

Voorstellen kosten tijd en geld en als uw prospect geïnteresseerd is , zal hij u om een voorstel vragen.

Als uw prospect u niet om een voorstel vraagt, betekent dit dat hij niet geïnteresseerd is in een samenwerking met u en dat u terug moet gaan in het verkoopproces om te begrijpen waar u de fout bent ingegaan.

Wanneer het verkoopproces vastloopt, is dat zelden te wijten aan iets wat u op dat moment verkeerd hebt gedaan – vaker is het iets wat u eerder in het verkoopproces hebt gemist.

Zorg ervoor dat u er zeker van bent dat alle voordelen van de software duidelijk aan hen zijn uitgelegd en in kaart zijn gebracht in het licht van hun aangegeven behoeften.

Indien mogelijk, vraag uw Witte Ridder altijd om u te helpen bij het opstellen van het voorstel, en controleer samen met hem of haar een conceptversie voordat u het officiële exemplaar verstuurt.

Voordat u uw voorstel verstuurt, moet u een duidelijk beeld hebben van wat de volgende stappen zijn als u wint of verliest.

Zonder dit is de kans groot dat je de komende drie maanden achter spoken in voice mail aan zit.

12. Prijsbepaling van uw SaaS-contracten

Veel bedrijven vermelden weinig of geen prijzen op hun website omdat zij niet willen dat hun concurrenten hun prijzen zien, of omdat zij denken dat het potentiële klanten zal afschrikken.

Je moet trots zijn op je prijs en de waarde die je brengt. Laat de concurrentie u ondermijnen en al hun middelen inzetten op onrendabele deals.

Mensen kopen zelden de goedkoopste oplossing, dus sta uw prospects toe u te onderbieden.

Als u nog steeds angstig over het hebben van uw prijzen op uw website dan na te denken over hoe je je voelt als je het onderzoek van een oplossing die u geïnteresseerd bent in alleen te vinden de prijs pagina is bezaaid met POA.

Als u zoals de meeste mensen bent, vindt u dit echt vervelend en gaat u snel naar de volgende potentiële leverancier.

Ten slotte is een ander voordeel van het met trots tonen van uw prijzen dat het iedereen die niet bereid is op dat niveau te investeren, eruit kwalificeert.

Dit kan u veel tijd en middelen besparen bij prospects die gewoon een ander budgetniveau hebben.

Er zijn tal van prijsstrategieën voor u beschikbaar, maar uit onze ervaring blijkt dat het enige wat gegarandeerd is, is dat u uw prijsstelling zult wijzigen.

Als vuistregel geldt dat als uw prijzen te hoog zijn voor een kortlopend contract of een betaalde proefperiode, de kans bestaat dat de prospect niet alle voordelen van de software zal ervaren voordat het contract afloopt, en dat hij zal besluiten niet te verlengen.

Waar mogelijk moet u prospects tijdens de proefperiode belonen voor het toevoegen van informatie en het gebruik van de dienst.

Bied bijvoorbeeld een kortere proefperiode aan en geef gebruikers een beloning als ze hun profiel/account volledig hebben ingesteld.

Bied een extra gratis periode aan om hen aan te moedigen het product te gebruiken, bijvoorbeeld als zij gegevens uploaden in het systeem.

Het idee is om uw nieuwe gebruikers stap voor stap te “onboarden” en uw product zo kleverig mogelijk te maken.
Als de prospect toch wil doorgaan, moet u contracten met digitale handtekening gebruiken om het verkoopproces te versnellen.

Stuur nooit contracten in e-mails of links naar digitale contracten, want die kunnen gemakkelijk worden genegeerd.

Zorg ervoor dat u de prospect aan de telefoon krijgt en neem het contract met hem door. Zodra zij hebben ingestemd met alles in het contract, vraagt u hen gewoon te tekenen terwijl u hen aan de telefoon hebt.

Op die manier behoudt u de controle over het verkoopproces.

13. Waarom de sales funnel zo belangrijk is voor SaaS aanbieders

Veel bedrijven zijn failliet gegaan nadat ze moeite hadden om een verkooptrechter te implementeren. De marketing en verkoop van SaaS-producten kan een enorme uitdaging zijn, en de kans is groot dat uw doelklanten al overstelpt worden met aanbiedingen van concurrerende softwareleveranciers.

Bedenk uit welk deel van het bestaande budget van de koper u inkomsten gaat halen. Bij welke directe of indirecte concurrenten zult u budget weghalen?

U concurreert wellicht met enkele van de grootste en machtigste merken ter wereld die generieke oplossingen bieden voor dezelfde problemen die u oplost.

Dit betekent dat u iets onderscheidends moet aanbieden waar uw klanten daadwerkelijk behoefte aan hebben.

Volgens een studie van CB Insights mislukt 42% van de SaaS-start-ups omdat ze producten aanbieden die hun doelklanten niet nodig hebben.

Potentiële klanten ervan overtuigen dat uw software echt waarde biedt, is essentieel.

14. Verwachtingen van prospects managen

Het creëren van een sales funnel gaat over het bouwen van een reis helemaal van webbezoeker, tot abonnee en door middel van demo’s en trails en eindigend met de ondertekening van het contract.

Uw verkooptrechter moet de nadruk leggen op elk van de belangrijkste stadia die uw prospects zullen doorlopen op hun weg naar een overeenkomst.

Wees open en eerlijk en deel de fasen van het proces vooraf met uw prospects.
U moet goed letten op eventuele wrijvingspunten die zich kunnen voordoen wanneer uw prospects door uw verkooppijplijn reizen.

Dit geeft u de mogelijkheid om verbeteringen aan te brengen in uw trechter voor de toekomst.
Het belangrijkste is dat je alle datapunten in je sales funnel vastlegt.

Dit zal u helpen beslissingen te nemen op basis van feiten in plaats van uw onderbuikgevoelens. Het kan even duren voordat uw sales funnel volledig effectief is, en het kan zijn dat u verschillende verfijningen moet aanbrengen voordat u een echt geoptimaliseerde sales funnel hebt.

Veel klanten hebben geen goed beeld van wat ze nodig hebben als ze voor het eerst met u in contact komen. Bied oplossingen, niet alleen producten, door prospects te helpen het verband tussen de twee te leggen.

Wat ook waar is, is dat gebruikers vaak kopen wat ze willen, niet wat ze nodig hebben.

Daarom is het zo belangrijk om gerichte vragen te stellen, zodat u nauwkeurig kunt bepalen wat hun behoeften zijn en uw software op de meest gunstige manier kunt positioneren.

Deze vragen zullen u ook vertellen hoe dichtbij of ver weg zij zijn om een beslissing te nemen.

15. De opkomst van SaaS-oplossingen

Het lijkt wel of alles in de wereld nu online wordt aangedreven door SaaS-applicaties. Van Netflix en Amazon Prime tot LinkedIn en Microsoft M365 worden we nu omringd door SaaS-oplossingen van de een of andere soort.

Financieel gezien is SaaS zinvol omdat zo zware kapitaaluitgaven vooraf worden vermeden en de risico’s van de oplossing worden verminderd.

Immers, als het niet werkt, zit u meestal maar aan een maximum van 12 maanden vast. Andere voordelen van SaaS zijn dat het gewoonlijk snel kan worden geïmplementeerd en geen onderhoud van de kant van de klant vereist.

Upgrades worden normaliter automatisch geleverd, waarbij klanten over het algemeen een gegarandeerd niveau van dienstverlening wordt geboden.

Back-ups en gegevensherstel worden meestal uitgevoerd voor rekening van de klant, zodat deze zich kan concentreren op wat hij het beste kan, in de veilige wetenschap dat alles wordt afgehandeld door de softwareontwikkelaars zelf.

Lockdown heeft SaaS turbo geladen
Werken op afstand was al in opkomst vóór de pandemie, dus het feit dat SaaS-producten mensen in staat stellen om van overal te werken en samen te werken, heeft SaaS alleen maar nog dieper in ons dagelijks leven verankerd.

Er worden duizenden nieuwe SaaS-producten ontwikkeld in elk land over de hele wereld, dus de concurrentie is hevig, maar er lijkt geen einde te komen aan de honger van consumenten en bedrijven naar SaaS-oplossingen.

Een coherente verkooptrechter kan het verschil betekenen tussen een viraal succes van uw product en gedwongen worden terug te keren naar de tekentafel.

SaaS Sales Training Course Find out more & book

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Hoe schrijf je een verkoopplan in 8 eenvoudige stappen (met GRATIS sjabloon)

by Iain Swanston

1. Hoe schrijf je een verkoopplan?

Er zijn maar weinig bedrijven die erin slagen hun verkoopdoelen te halen of te overtreffen zonder een verkoopplan, of moet ik zeggen met succes een verkoopplan maken en het uitvoeren.

Het maken van een verkoopplan helpt je om je verkoopdoelstellingen vast te stellen en de stappen te schetsen die je gaat nemen om ze te bereiken.

Een typisch verkoopplan bevat informatie over hoe de groei zal worden bereikt (dit wordt ook wel je verkoopstrategieën en -tactieken genoemd) en hoe de verkoop zal worden gemeten.

Het meten van de verkoop van je product of dienst lijkt misschien eenvoudig, maar er zijn vaak andere belangrijke indicatoren en statistieken dan omzet die kunnen en moeten worden gebruikt om het succes van de uitvoering van het verkoopplan te meten.

Je plan kan ook details bevatten over doelklanten en hun pijnpunten, het verkoopproces, rollen en verantwoordelijkheden, omzetdoelen, bedrijfsdoelen en een verkoop- en marketingstrategie voor je producten en diensten.

Hopelijk heb je nu een beter begrip van de voordelen van een verkoopplan en neem je de volgende stap en download je gratis onze template, zodat je kunt beginnen met het maken van een verkoopplan voor je eigen bedrijf.

2. Verschillende soorten verkoopplannen

Helaas bestaat er, gezien alle verschillen tussen industrieën, bedrijven en producten, niet één plan dat op elk bedrijf kan worden toegepast. Er zijn 3 belangrijke verschillen waar u zich bewust van moet zijn:

1. Klantenbestand – verkoop je aan een gevestigd klantenbestand waar je bestaande accounts moet beheren of verkoop je aan een nieuw gebied waar je je moet richten op het openen van nieuwe accounts? In werkelijkheid is het vaak een mengeling van de twee.

2. Beweging in de markt – is de markt stabiel genoeg om te herhalen wat je verkoopcijfers in voorgaande jaren opleverden of is de markt aan het veranderen en dwingt hij je om tegelijkertijd te veranderen?

3. Bedrijfsstrategie – het verkoopplan moet voldoen aan de doelstellingen van het bedrijfsplan of deze overtreffen. Het plan moet daarom worden afgestemd op de bedrijfsmissie en de algemene bedrijfsstrategie. Als een deel van de bedrijfsstrategie bestaat uit het afstoten van het risico van één inkomstenstroom, dan moet het verkoopplan dit weerspiegelen.

De verkoop is de brandstof die het schip aandrijft, maar het is het bedrijf dat bepaalt waar het schip naartoe gaat.

3. Het verhogen van uw verkoopopbrengsten

Soms kan verkoop erg ingewikkeld lijken, maar het is de moeite waard om te onthouden dat er slechts drie manieren zijn om de verkoopopbrengsten als volgt te verhogen:

a) De verkoop verhogen door te verkopen aan accounts die op één lijn liggen met je ideale doelklanten

b) De omzet verhogen door meer te verkopen aan bestaande klanten

c) Verhoog uw prijzen

De groei in uw verkoopplan moet ten minste een van de bovenstaande punten weerspiegelen, maar bij voorkeur alle drie. Je moet ook rekening houden met “churn”, omdat elk bedrijf, hoe goed het ook is, na verloop van tijd klanten verliest.

Zelfs als je niets verkeerd doet gaan klanten failliet, worden ze overgenomen, trekken ze weg en verlies je zaken.

Het terugdringen van klantenchurn kan heel goed een onderdeel zijn van uw groeistrategie. Alles wat u kunt doen om uw Customer Lifetime Value te verhogen is altijd de moeite waard en zal u in de toekomst goed van pas komen.

Terug naar inhoudstafel

4. Voorbereiden op succes

Verkoopsplannen zijn in de eerste plaats ontworpen om u te helpen meer verkoop te realiseren. Zij moeten informatie bevatten over wat uw huidige situatie is, wat u nastreeft en wat u moet doen om uw visie werkelijkheid te laten worden.

Verkoopsplannen zijn als een routekaart die uw team kan volgen om succes te boeken. Zonder dit stappenplan zullen zij er langer over doen om hun doelstellingen te bereiken, aangezien zij trager en mogelijk zelfs in een andere richting zullen evolueren.

Een meer gefocust en gedreven team

Een belangrijk voordeel van elk verkoopplan is dat het uw teamleden kan helpen zich meer te concentreren op het bereiken van een specifiek doel, of een reeks doelen.

Zodra er een verkoopplan is, moet uw team een vaster, meer samenhangend idee hebben van wat uw doelstellingen zijn. Ze zouden ook een specifieker idee moeten hebben van de stappen die ze persoonlijk moeten nemen om ze te bereiken.

Verkoopplannen kunnen ook helpen voorkomen dat de verkoop na verloop van tijd daalt door je team gefocust te houden en een constant gevoel van doelgerichtheid te geven.

Ze kunnen u ook helpen de specifieke capaciteiten van uw team optimaal te benutten en rollen toe te wijzen aan de meest geschikte medewerkers.

Vertrouwen scheppen

Vertrouwen is een belangrijk maar vaak over het hoofd gezien onderdeel van het verkoopsucces in elke organisatie.

Een goed geschreven verkoopplan geeft vertrouwen en richting aan het verkoopteam en als je eenmaal een solide verkoopplan hebt, is de kans groter dat je investeerders en andere belanghebbenden aan je zijde krijgt of houdt.

Het verkoopplan moet ook informatie bevatten over de waarschijnlijke en mogelijke uitdagingen die u voorziet en hoe u die denkt aan te pakken.

Duidelijkheid en samenhang

Verkoopplannen moeten duidelijk zijn, zodat ze gemakkelijk kunnen worden begrepen door mensen buiten de verkoopafdeling.

Het heeft geen zin om je verkoopplan vol te stoppen met verkoopjargon dat sommige teamleden maar moeilijk kunnen begrijpen.

Het is essentieel dat je verkoopplan je plannen en doelen voor de periode die het bestrijkt duidelijk uiteenzet in een gemakkelijk te lezen formaat.

Als u hulp nodig hebt bij het opstellen en uitvoeren van uw verkoopplan, bieden wij een volledige verkoopconsultancydienst en willen wij graag met u praten over hoe wij met uw team kunnen samenwerken om uw omzet te verhogen.

5. Kaders voor een verkoopplan

We hebben een raamwerk voor je Salesplan in Microsoft PowerPoint gemaakt, zodat je het ook als presentatiedocument kunt gebruiken. Het bevat gemakkelijk in te vullen secties over:

1. Herziening – Leren wat het afgelopen jaar heeft gewerkt en wat niet, is een essentieel onderdeel van elk verkoopplan. Op deze manier kunnen we herhalen of vergroten wat werkt en verminderen, elimineren of aanpassen wat niet werkt.

Het is ook verstandig om naar uw gegevens uit het verleden te kijken wanneer u doelstellingen vaststelt. Heeft u een goede staat van dienst als het gaat om het halen van uw doelstellingen? Als je er in het verleden niet in geslaagd bent om je doelen te bereiken, weet je dan waarom?

Door uw prestaties uit het verleden nauwgezet te evalueren, kunt u de kans dat uw laatste campagne een succes wordt, optimaliseren en onrealistische doelstellingen vermijden.

2. Verkoopteam – verkopers zijn een belangrijk onderdeel van het verkoopsucces in elke organisatie en moeten altijd in het plan worden opgenomen.

Naast de prestaties uit het verleden moet u aantonen hoe u van plan bent hen tijdens de looptijd van het plan te ondersteunen door middel van opleiding en coaching.

Details van de opleiding moeten worden opgenomen in het PDP (Personal Development Plan) van elke werknemer en de coaching moet worden vastgelegd in individuele coachingswerkbladen.

Er kunnen momenten zijn waarop elke verkoper vergelijkbare ontwikkelingsbehoeften heeft, maar op zijn minst moet de coaching altijd op maat zijn.

3. Strategie – dit is gewoon een verklaring op hoog niveau over hoe je de verkoop aan jouw markt gaat aanpakken. De details zoals doelen, prioriteiten en mijlpalen van de strategie worden uiteengezet in het gedeelte Doelstellingen van het verkoopplan.

Een voorbeeld van een strategie zou de Big Bets of Blockbuster strategie zijn. Stel je voor dat je een filmmaatschappij had en je moest kiezen in welke films je de komende 12 maanden $100.000.000 zou investeren.

Zou u uw $100.000.000 nemen en £1 miljoen dollar investeren in 100 films of zou u £10 miljoen investeren en proberen 10 kaskrakers te maken?

Misschien is het uw strategie om uw klantenbestand te verschuiven van middelgrote naar grote ondernemingen. Je strategie zou kunnen zijn om je portfolio uit te breiden om aan meer behoeften van je klanten te voldoen en de concurrentie buiten de deur te houden.

Jouw strategie kan het tegenovergestelde zijn en misschien wil je je portefeuille verkleinen en stroomlijnen.

Door de keuze te beperken, kunt u uw middelen voor verkoop en marketing concentreren en uw bedrijfskosten verlagen. We zijn grote fans van de Blockbuster-strategie omdat we houden van de focus en eenvoud die deze met zich meebrengt.

Wij aanvaarden dat er een verhoogd risico is wanneer u zich op minder opties concentreert, maar er moet toch een vorm van validatie zijn in uw Blockbuster-strategie. Zal de volgende Bondfilm een hit worden? Gebaseerd op eerdere Bondfilms wel ja.

Dus de meeste (niet alle) Blockbusters zouden al bewezen inkomstenstromen moeten zijn die u gewoon verdubbelt.

4. SWOT-analyse – dit is waar je je sterke punten, zwakke punten, kansen en bedreigingen kunt documenteren om je verkoopstrategie te helpen vormen en valideren. Denk eraan dat de SWOT alleen mag verwijzen naar je verkoopstrategie.

De SWOT dient als bewijs dat jij en je team kritisch hebben nagedacht over je verkoopstrategie en de tijd hebben genomen om elk aspect van de strategie te doordenken.

Zodra u een SWOT-analyse hebt uitgevoerd, kunt u de gegevens gebruiken om een strategie uit te stippelen die de Zwakke punten en Bedreigingen minimaliseert en de Sterke punten en Kansen maximaliseert.

5. Doelstellingen – Je verkoopplan moet gebaseerd zijn op echt haalbare doelen. Het zal veel moeilijker zijn om je team je verkoopplan te laten omarmen als je doelen onrealistisch of onredelijk zijn.

Het is prima om ambitieus te zijn, maar je doelen moeten wel realistisch zijn. Onrealistische of onhaalbare doelstellingen zullen het verkoopteam alleen maar demoraliseren en ertoe leiden dat ze het opgeven.

Uw doelstellingen en strategieën moeten meetbaar zijn, zodat u kunt nagaan welke vooruitgang u boekt. U moet onderzoek opnemen dat uw doelstellingen ondersteunt, vooral als uw doelstellingen bijzonder ambitieus lijken.

Vaststelling van groeidoelstellingen/doelstellingen in het plan

Groeidoelstellingen in een verkoopplan kunnen sterk uiteenlopen. Sommige verkoopplannen zijn gebaseerd op wat het bedrijf in het volgende kwartaal wil bereiken, terwijl andere langetermijndoelstellingen voor 12 maanden hebben.

Het zou ongebruikelijk zijn om een verkoopplan te hebben dat langer is dan 12 maanden, omdat markten en klanten zo snel kunnen veranderen.

Uw verkoopplan moet wendbaar genoeg zijn om snel op deze veranderingen in te spelen. De beste verkoopplannen bevatten gedetailleerde informatie over de activiteiten die moeten plaatsvinden en de middelen die moeten worden ingezet om succes te boeken.

Een eenvoudige methode voor het maken van verkoopprognoses zou zijn de maandelijkse verkoopcijfers van het voorgaande jaar te nemen en dan 20% bij elke maand op te tellen. Dit levert een maandelijkse verkoopdoelstelling op die rekening houdt met eventuele seizoensgebonden veranderingen, en die na 12 maanden een jaarlijkse groei van 20% zal hebben opgeleverd.

Het is normaal gesproken het beste om aparte verkoopdoelstellingen op te sommen voor:
productmix
nieuwe klanten vs. bestaande klanten
verkoop per regio
verkoop per verticaal
individuele verkopers

Hoewel het bijhouden van elk element misschien overdreven lijkt, kunt u zo uw verkoopplan snel aanpassen en indien nodig noodplannen uitvoeren. Zo kunt u bijvoorbeeld, als een van de verticals onvoldoende presteert, ervoor kiezen middelen over te hevelen naar andere verticals die actiever zijn.

6. Verkooptactieken en -technieken – na strategie en planning komt de tactiek. Dit zijn heel eenvoudig de benaderingen die u zult gebruiken om de doelstellingen van het verkoopplan te bereiken.

Uw verkooptactiek moet de taken en activiteiten noemen die het verkoopteam dagelijks zal uitvoeren om het plan uit te voeren.

Tactieken kunnen zo eenvoudig zijn als het veranderen van de verkoopboodschap om aan te sluiten bij een nieuwe markt of het omscholen van klantenserviceteams in up-selling van bestaande accounts.

Misschien wilt u dat uw verkoopteam meer tijd investeert in sociale media met behulp van tools zoals LinkedIn om nieuwe prospects te identificeren of bent u geïnteresseerd in het starten van een koude e-mailcampagne.

7. Metrics – het is belangrijk om af te spreken hoe succes eruit ziet en hoe je het gaat meten voordat je aan een project begint.

Er zijn tal van geweldige systemen en hulpmiddelen beschikbaar voor dit, maar je moet een lijst maken van trackingmethoden die je gaat gebruiken voor de duur van je plan.

Het kan gaan om uw verkoopstrategieën, technieken voor toezicht en prestatiecijfers.

Waar mogelijk:
a) gebruik bestaande systemen en tools zoals CRM die al bestaan en gebruikt worden, zodat je niet meegesleurd wordt in een software-implementatieproject.

b) de registratie van de maatregelen mag geen extra werklast voor de verkopers met zich meebrengen, aangezien de kans dan kleiner is dat zij de maatregelen voltooien.

c) waar mogelijk gebruik te maken van voorlopende indicatoren en niet van achterlopende. Voorbeelden van een lead-indicator zijn het aantal gekwalificeerde nieuwe verkoopleads en een vertragingsindicator is de maandelijkse omzet.

Hoewel de inkomsten belangrijk zijn, is het te laat als we wachten tot het einde van de maand om de inkomstencijfers te krijgen en we het doel missen.

Door de voorlopende indicatoren te meten, kunnen wij corrigerende maatregelen nemen voordat de achterblijvende indicator wordt gemist.

SaaS-bedrijven houden vaak het aantal abonnementen op hun app bij, wat belangrijk is, maar de lead-indicator kan net zo eenvoudig zijn als het aantal bezoekers van de website.

U zult een lijst moeten maken van de opsporingsmethoden die u voor de duur van uw plan zult gebruiken. Het kan gaan om uw verkoopstrategieën, technieken voor toezicht en prestatiecijfers.

Wij gebruiken Sales Scorecards om KPI’s vast te leggen en bij te houden, maar er zijn veel verschillende methoden om KPI’s bij te houden, van eenvoudige spreadsheets tot online apps.

8. Budget – verkoop en verkoopkosten geld. Of het nu gaat om een eenvoudig Linkedin Sales Navigator-abonnement of een Expo van 6 cijfers in Las Vegas, alles in sales kost geld en dat moet worden begroot.

De budgetten zullen van bedrijf tot bedrijf sterk verschillen, maar u moet altijd proberen de kosten van tevoren te kwantificeren.

Bedrijven die geen geformaliseerde budgetten voor verkoop hebben en op ad hoc-basis werken, bevinden zich van nature lager in het maturiteitsmodel voor verkoop.

Als u van plan bent tijdens de periode een aanzienlijk bedrag uit te geven, zult u dit tegenover uw belanghebbenden moeten verantwoorden. Het plan moet gedetailleerde cijfers bevatten om te illustreren waar uw budget naartoe zal gaan.

Als u tijdens de periode investeert in nieuwe middelen, voeg dan een ROI-analyse toe aan uw verkoopplan om de investering te helpen rechtvaardigen.

Misschien wilt u ook budgetteren voor onvoorziene kosten zoals aanwerving, mocht een verkoopmedewerker onverwachts vertrekken, dan moet u hem vervangen.

Als u niet over het vereiste budget beschikt, moet u uw verkoopplan misschien aanpassen, maar u hoeft het niet noodzakelijk helemaal te schrappen.

Terug naar inhoudstafel

6. Inhoud verkoopplan

Je verkoopplan moet niet alleen uit tekst bestaan. Waar mogelijk is het de moeite waard om het document professioneel te laten ontwerpen.

Als u ervoor kiest een sjabloon zoals het onze te gebruiken, moet u ten minste uw eigen branding opnemen. Het is gebruikelijk om lijsten, tabellen, grafieken, screenshots en grafieken te gebruiken om belangrijke informatie over te brengen over de doelstellingen van het bedrijf en de markt die u bedient.

Het verkoopplan moet ook onderzoek bevatten over wat er op dit moment gebeurt in jouw branche. Dit betekent dat het belangrijk is om statistieken op te nemen die gebaseerd zijn op het laatste onderzoek.

Het is ook aan te raden om onderzoek te doen naar je bestaande klanten en doelmarkt voordat je begint met het maken van je verkoopplan.

Afhankelijk van de sector waarin je actief bent, kan er meer vraag zijn vanuit een bepaald marktsegment dan in voorgaande jaren.

Omgekeerd is het mogelijk dat de groepen waarop u zich vroeger richtte, niet meer zo geïnteresseerd zijn in uw producten en diensten als ze ooit waren. Doe waar mogelijk onderzoek zodat je je standpunten kunt onderbouwen.

Vergeet niet dat uw document niet ongelooflijk formeel hoeft te zijn, maar het moet wel samenhangend en gemakkelijk te begrijpen zijn.

7. Het aanmoedigen van Buy In

Zodra u uw verkoopplan hebt voltooid, moet u het niet alleen aan uw team presenteren, maar ook aan uw stakeholders en relevante managers.

Als u deze niet aan boord kunt krijgen, zal uw plan waarschijnlijk niet effectief zijn. Hoe overtuigender je verkoopplan, hoe meer enthousiasme je kunt opwekken.

De directie zal ook eerder geneigd zijn uw budget vrij te geven als u een indrukwekkend goed doordacht verkoopplan kunt voorleggen.

Met dit in gedachten is het altijd het beste om andere mensen te betrekken bij het opstellen van het Salesplan. Het zal veel gemakkelijker zijn de verkoopmensen te overtuigen als zij hebben geholpen bij het opstellen van het document en het hoger management zal eerder geneigd zijn budget toe te kennen als het bij het hele proces betrokken is geweest.

Met dit in gedachten is het de moeite waard om je verkopers te vragen miniplannen en prognoses te maken die specifiek zijn voor hun rayon en deze vervolgens op te nemen in het masterplan.

Dit is een goede manier om eigenaarschap en verantwoordelijkheid binnen uw verkoopteam te ontwikkelen en biedt een goed referentiepunt voor toekomstige coaching.

Een goed ontworpen en uitgevoerd verkoopplan kan uw bedrijf naar het volgende niveau tillen. Houd het realistisch en begrijpelijk, zodat anderen zich erin kunnen vinden.

Of u nu een nieuw bedrijf hebt, een klein bedrijf, een middenmarkt- of een ondernemingsorganisatie, de voordelen van een goed geschreven verkoopplan zijn groot. Als je het goed doet, zal je verkoopplan je positioneren voor succes op zowel korte als lange termijn.

Vaak speelt een effectief verkoopplan een belangrijke rol bij het afstemmen van de activiteiten van het verkoopteam en zorgt het ervoor dat iedereen naar dezelfde doelen toewerkt en vooruitgaat.

Gratis Verkoopplan Sjabloon

Download een gratis sjabloon zodat u kunt beginnen te profiteren van de voordelen van strategische en effectieve planning.

Het gratis sjabloon kan worden gedownload als Microsoft Word-document om u op weg te helpen.

Dit sjabloon is een van de meer dan 30 verkooptools en sjablonen die beschikbaar zijn in ons verkoopdraaiboek.

CEO Coaching – Moving from Surviving to Thriving

by Iain Swanston

Lees meer

In this article we will cover...

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

How to Sell on LinkedIn – the short answer

1. Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

2. Your Company Brand on LinkedIn

3. Don’t be spammy

4. How to Optimise your LinkedIn profile

5. How to create a LinkedIn Company Page

6. How to create a LinkedIn Showcase Page

7. How to create a LinkedIn Showcase Page

8. How to create a Boolean Search Strings

9. How to connect on LinkedIn

HOW TO DOWNLOAD YOUR LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS

10. How to get the most from LinkedIn Messaging

11. How to Create a LinkedIn Event

12. How to use sell using LinkedIn Groups

13. How to get the most from LinkedIn Inmail

14. Using LinkedIn for Content Marketing

15. How to sell on LinkedIn using Sales Navigator

16. What is LinkedIn Social Selling Index?

17. How to sell on LinkedIn using Automation Software

18. How to sell on LinkedIn – Engagement Pods

19. How to sell on LinkedIn – Social Selling Course

LinkedIn Sales Strategy Consulting

Why invest in Sales Training and Consulting?

1. Why sales consulting compliments your sales training?

2. Why is Sales Training so effective?

3. What happens before training takes place?

4. What is the aim of Sales Training

5. How can a Sales Consultant help our business?

6. Adding Sales Experience to your Leadership Team

7. Which Companies benefit the most from Consulting Services

8. Build a Selling System

In Conclusion

How can Sales and Service Training help my team?

Close More Deals and Learn New Skills

Benefit from External Sales Specialists

Retain the Best Staff

Should Managers attend Sales and Service Training?

Increase your Customer Satisfaction Ratings

Omnichannel Customer Support

Build Expert Product Knowledge

Enhance Customer Loyalty

Resolve Disputes Quickly

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

1. Sales Coaching - Why Invest in Coaching?

2. Sales Training vs Sales Coaching - what's the difference?

3. When to coach and when not to coach

4. Sales Coaching Models

Opportunities for Coaching

5. The Six Biggest Benefits of Sales Coaching

1. Growing Sales Revenues

2. Increased Sales Productivity

3. Closing Bigger & Better Deals

4. Win More New Clients

5. Boost Workplace Morale

6. Increased Decision Making by Sales Reps

6. Virtual or Remote Sales Coaching

7. Sales Coaching Tips

1. Focus on One-on-One Coaching

2. Implement an Effective Coaching Program

3. Encourage Role Play and Real-Life Scenarios

4. Offer Constructive Criticism and Praise

5. Align Coaching with Business Goals

6. Utilize Technology for Continuous Improvement

7. Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

8. Best Practices for Sales Managers in Coaching Sessions

9. Sales Coaching Techniques

10. Coaching your Sales Team in a Structured Way

11. Product and Service Training

12. Coaching Sales Managers

13. Virtual Selling

14. In Conclusion

The Objectives of Sales Management

1. Sales Plan

2. Sales Strategy

3. Reporting and Metrics

4. Sales Performance

5. Key duties of the Sales Manager

6. Team Morale